Hackers in the Bazaar "blog" posts 😎
Finally taking in this well-anticipated section of the book, I was far from disappointed. Our window was now fixed on the third-generation hackers, and particularly on the life of one hacker, Ken Williams, and the life and (death) of his company On-Line. At this point in time, there was no longer the idea that a real hacker was born into their infatuation. Now, there were personal computers that anyone could purchase and have in their own home. This led to this new generation of hackers, ones who saw the potential in this small box and couldn’t keep their hands nor eyes off it. With the hacker ethic still seemingly adhered to, there was one exception, and that was regarding the free flow of information. Not all hackers of this generation wanted to hack for the sake of visceral enjoyment–some, like Ken Williams, saw the opportunity of money.
For a while, On-Line was a utopia of a company. Along with two friendly rivalry companies, Sirius and Brøderbund, the Brotherhood of companies fostered their own decentralized forces of hackers who strongly held to the Hacker Ethic. The purest hackers were hired and had full artistic control over what they would make, which gave way for creation of the best and most successful video games. The three companies were clearly competitors, but they grew transparent relationships where they would actually work together to serve the marketplace as best they could (not a brothel!). Rather than holding in business secrets from each other just as the hardware hackers had began to do, they were involved in a collaborative basis.
Unfortunately, this ideal environment didn’t last. Ken Williams, who once treasured the values of the Hacker Ethic in his company’s mission, began to shift. His company was growing rapidly, and if he wanted to keep up with this growth, he would need better management than how he currently handled his business. He contacted Dick Sunderland, his old boss whom he despised, to lead the company’s management. As a result, the company started to transform into more of a bureaucracy. No longer did ideas flow freely nor did hackers have full control on what they wanted to make. Hackers had a niche for perfecting what they make up to the last detail, but Ken Williams was so blinded by his growing power that he no longer believed hackerism was the key to maximize profits. Rather, he had started to believe efficiency in guessing what the marketplace wanted was key, and that hacker efficiency was severely stunted. As a response, the pure hackers left. One hacker in particular, John Harris, the star programmer of On-Line, left On-Line over the distraught this awful transformation the company undergone had caused him. Ken Williams, thought to be coming to terms with what he’d done, was instead still blinded by his money and proceeded to be so entirely butthurt that he name-dropped John Harris several times, implying how much better off he was without his star programmer despite having significantly decreasing profits.
Overall, it seems to be that the hacker ethic can only last so long under weak-minded individuals. In the case of On-Line, the hacker ethic was once alive and well, and demonstrated excellently, that is, until Ken Williams had a change of heart, losing his connection to hackerdom both emotionally and physically, cutting off any ties the hacker ethic had once had with the marketplace. With my optimism, however, this was just one unfortunate example of how the hacker ethic could not take full form in the marketplace (with exception to EA, whose ideals matched up perfectly with the hacker ethic, and now look at where they are. Cringe.). I still believe that it’s possible to wholeheartedly follow the hacker ethic admist the market, but that if you want the hacker ethic to prevail, you have to hold your priorities straight. Ken Williams always had his eye on the money with hackerism as his second motive, and that’s what ultimately led him to failure. Plus, is the hacker ethic ever really gone? It can appear somewhere in the marketplace, then disappear and reappear somewhere else. The light of passion can never die.