I fell long and hard into the hacking world as a teenager, partially through the punk scene and partially through reading posts and grabbing shared text files through BBSes. I was 14.

I was hungry. I was curious. I wanted to learn, do, and mingle.

I saw Hackers in the theater when I was 16. I rented Sneakers on VHS. I was getting heavily drawn into cyberpunk. I was already using Linux and learning about both its internals, as well as the internals of Solaris (the only UNIX we had a copy of), and Windows NT.

I then discovered the Cult of the Dead Cow, 2600, Phrack, and the Church of the SubGenius. Pure bliss.

I don't know what happened, but I read The Cathedral and the Bazaar, found the Free Software Foundation, and suddenly in my 20s... I was fucking BORING. All the mindset and style suddenly got thrown in the trunk.

I hated it. I hated myself for doing this to myself. This wasn't the kind of hacker I wanted to be... turn into a grumpy, boring, insufferable asshole? No, I couldn't do that.

In my 30s, I cast that aside. I began to embrace my old self again. I started to feel whole again.

Now, in my 40s, I look back and I think about this... Eric Raymond was gatekeeping. Him and his ilk are not the masters. They're the assholes. Who the fuck are they to tell us what kinds of hackers we should be? They claim "don't conform", not knowing the irony in their words and actions.

Which is why I say, I will be the kind of hacker that pisses ESR off to no end. I will do it my way.

Hack the Planet. Piss off the gatekeepers.
#HackThePlanet