If it is open source, is it still considered hacking?

noman-land an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Hacking is widely considered to historically mean "using a system in a creative and unusual way to get it to behave in ways that were not anticipated or intended by the creator". A hacker is a tinkerer. Some tinkerers do crime. Most don't.

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yomismoaqui 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Asking this on a site called Hacker News is gold.

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system2 an hour ago | parent [-]

Heh, true, but when I think about open source, I think of "developing". Hacking indicates a restricted device being unlocked or doing things that it was not meant to do. If this is the definition of hacking, installing Ubuntu on a brand-new machine is hacking.

	▲	zem 21 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		it's the difference between "hacking" and "hacking on"

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mlmonkey 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Hacking means much more than just breaking into systems ...

	▲	reaperducer an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I'm old enough to have lived through at least seven definitions of "hacker." Including the one in the late 1970's when a hacker was someone who took public domain software and then sold it commercially with their own name on it.