Are we really still talking about the word hacker?

The answer is Yup. Dana Blankenhorn talks about why a RedHat VP shouldn't have used the term 'volunteer hackers' to describe people who help develop Linux.

But to many people in the enterprise space, caught between an impulse to support or discourage open source, the term is loaded. To these people it implies a criminal, at minimum someone who cares nothing for intellectual property, for patent and copyright. It also implies someone young and immature, a high school geek with a pocket protector.

Really? Are there really people in the Enterprise IT space that are confused about the term hacker in this context? Is there a CIO that read the original interview and decided to write off Linux because it was written by a bunch of criminals? Is there a CIO that hasn't hired a bunch of young and immature geeks somewhere inside of their organization? The word hacker is not going to slow down the adoption rate of Linux.

Yes it's a term with many meanings. It's pretty easy to understand which one is being used here. Even for pointy haired bosses.

Comments

[obijuan]

"People in the enterprise space" considering Linux is not going to be put off by the term hacker at all. The ones who don't understand what a hacker is are the only ones think a hacker is a "criminal." And these are not CIOs who are considering supporting open source. Dana's blog entry seems like an attempt to express his disdain for the word hacker. It should be celebrated that the RedHat VP uses the term "volunteer hackers" to describe Linux developers, not discouraged.

[LonerVamp]

The problem is that while those of us that read this site and many enterprise IT groups will understand the duality of the term "hacker," not all that many other people do. Can you imagine the marketing spin you can put on a quote by a RedHat VP that their OS is made by "volunteer hackers?" The media already abuses this term and stirs up emotion using it in popular press. It is then attaching the stigma that the OS may not be trusted as hackers may have put backdoors into it blah blah blah.

While a statement like this can be gotten away with in CIO or other trade mags and the like, it cannot be gotten away with outside that context, sadly. We may want to take the term "hacker" in a more positive sense, but most people don't, even some less experienced IT types (many of which can be very firm advocates against *nix because they don't understand it).

[Anonymous]

"But to many people in the enterprise space..."

Is he talking about Trekkies?

[grey]

Words, can have more than one meaning, and that meaning might not be one that everyone likes or agrees with because of. Wait, why are they hung up on words? Ok, this is obviously a bit over my head I must be a real idiot, but still I am in a state of shock and horror at this startling revelation. I'm sure his level of interpretting this term hacker as being non-enterprise is totally valid, I just don't know enough about this sort of thing yet, I hope we'll see more explanation.

In fact, it would really help me if someone were to write an advisory on these 'lexical collision attacks' as I'll call them, sort of like a dictionary attack I guess? Anyway I am at least able to figure enough from the article that apparently you can substitute multiple semantic readings for the same word! Sounds like a new class of attack to me.

I'm glad we have such great journalism to explore these things for us, it's so ahead of the curve. I mean, what would we do without journalists? I'm glad someone pays them to present their deeply insightful thoughts to the world at large. They are just so much more grounded than those unpaid snooty bloggers writing on whatever random thing comes to mind as seemingly interesting.

The implications of this type of attack seem to be huge in my preliminary independent studies. All this time I thought gay just meant 'lighthearted' but you should see some of the semantic collisions people are using for that one. I'm surprised to see how widespread these types of attacks have been in the wild. But, now a non-elite reader can understand this technique in layman terms.

Thanks ZDNET!

[Richi Jennings]

Yes; yes; probably; no.

In case it's not clear, I disagree. People Like Us are generally unclear on the "real" meaning of hacker. The sad fact is, the meanings of words change. For example, a weblog isn't what it used to be -- indeed people are commonly using the noun "blog" to refer to a single blog entry. It offends out tender sensibilities, but we should probably Get Over It.

http://richi.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">richi.

[ed hardyswimwear uk]

ed hardy hoodies
cheap christian audigier bikini
ed hardy shirts
cheap christian audigier hoody
women ed hardy clothing
ed hardy hoody uk
ed hardy jacket
ed hardy uk
ed hardy shirts
ed hardy swimwear
ed hardy ugg boots
ed hardy shoes uk
ed hardy hoody uk
buy ed hardy shirts
ed hardy womens shoes
ed hardy handbags uk
ed hardy at uk
ed hardy t shirts uk
ed hardy sunglasses uk
ed hardy womens tiger hoodie