>>3
This explanation of hacking sounds like Richard Stallman or at least a contemporary of Stallman. I dont think that people realize that Stallman's definition of hacking pervades his whole concept of how the software industry should be run. Here is an article I found that I think sheds light on that:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/rms-lisp.html
an exerpt:
There were two different ideas about what this company should be like. Greenblatt wanted to start what he called a “hacker” company. This meant it would be a company run by hackers and would operate in a way conducive to hackers. Another goal was to maintain the AI Lab culture (1). Unfortunately, Greenblatt didn't have any business experience, so other people in the Lisp machine group said they doubted whether he could succeed. They thought that his plan to avoid outside investment wouldn't work.
Why did he want to avoid outside investment? Because when a company has outside investors, they take control and they don't let you have any scruples. And eventually, if you have any scruples, they also replace you as the manager.
So Greenblatt had the idea that he would find a customer who would pay in advance to buy the parts. They would build machines and deliver them; with profits from those parts, they would then be able to buy parts for a few more machines, sell those and then buy parts for a larger number of machines, and so on. The other people in the group thought that this couldn't possibly work.
Greenblatt then recruited Russell Noftsker, the man who had hired me, who had subsequently left the AI Lab and created a successful company. Russell was believed to have an aptitude for business. He demonstrated this aptitude for business by saying to the other people in the group, “Let's ditch Greenblatt, forget his ideas, and we'll make another company.” Stabbing in the back, clearly a real businessman. Those people decided they would form a company called Symbolics. They would get outside investment, not have scruples, and do everything possible to win.
But Greenblatt didn't give up. He and the few people loyal to him decided to start Lisp Machines Inc. anyway and go ahead with their plans. And what do you know, they succeeded! They got the first customer and were paid in advance. They built machines and sold them, and built more machines and more machines. They actually succeeded even though they didn't have the help of most of the people in the group. Symbolics also got off to a successful start, so you had two competing Lisp machine companies. When Symbolics saw that LMI was not going to fall flat on its face, they started looking for ways to destroy it.
Thus, the abandonment of our lab was followed by “war” in our lab. The abandonment happened when Symbolics hired away all the hackers, except me and the few who worked at LMI part-time. Then they invoked a rule and eliminated people who worked part-time for MIT, so they had to leave entirely, which left only me. The AI lab was now helpless. And MIT had made a very foolish arrangement with these two companies. It was a three-way contract where both companies licensed the use of Lisp machine system sources. These companies were required to let MIT use their changes. But it didn't say in the contract that MIT was entitled to put them into the MIT Lisp machine systems that both companies had licensed. Nobody had envisioned that the AI lab's hacker group would be wiped out, but it was.
So Symbolics came up with a plan (4). They said to the lab, “We will continue making our changes to the system available for you to use, but you can't put it into the MIT Lisp machine system. Instead, we'll give you access to Symbolics' Lisp machine system, and you can run it, but that's all you can do.”
This, in effect, meant that they demanded that we had to choose a side, and use either the MIT version of the system or the Symbolics version. Whichever choice we made determined which system our improvements went to. If we worked on and improved the Symbolics version, we would be supporting Symbolics alone. If we used and improved the MIT version of the system, we would be doing work available to both companies, but Symbolics saw that we would be supporting LMI because we would be helping them continue to exist. So we were not allowed to be neutral anymore.
Up until that point, I hadn't taken the side of either company, although it made me miserable to see what had happened to our community and the software. But now, Symbolics had forced the issue. So, in an effort to help keep Lisp Machines Inc. going (2) — I began duplicating all of the improvements Symbolics had made to the Lisp machine system. I wrote the equivalent improvements again myself (i.e., the code was my own).
After a while (3), I came to the conclusion that it would be best if I didn't even look at their code. When they made a beta announcement that gave the release notes, I would see what the features were and then implement them. By the time they had a real release, I did too.
In this way, for two years, I prevented them from wiping out Lisp Machines Incorporated, and the two companies went on. But, I didn't want to spend years and years punishing someone, just thwarting an evil deed. I figured they had been punished pretty thoroughly because they were stuck with competition that was not leaving or going to disappear(6). Meanwhile, it was time to start building a new community to replace the one that their actions and others had wiped out.