Does &#8220;Corporation X&#8221; follow the hacker way?
<p>Got a query from a journalist today working on a major story about a certain large corporation that&#8217;s been much in the news lately. Seems the corporation&#8217;s founder has been talking up his organization&#8217;s allegiance to &#8220;the hacker way&#8221;, and she not unreasonably wanted my opinion as to whether or not this was complete horse-puckey.</p>
<p>So as not to steal the lady&#8217;s thunder, I won&#8217;t reveal the identity of Corporation X. I will, however, repeat a version of my answer with its identity lightly obscured &#8211; because I think these are questions we should ask <em>any</em> corporation that talks like that.</p>
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<p>I answered:</p>
<p>I have never used Corporation X&#8217;s website myself. Therefore, rather than directly opining about what Corporation X espouses, I&#8217;ll suggest some criteria your readers can apply for themselves.</p>
<p>As a user of Corporation X&#8217;s site, do I have control of the data Corporation X keeps about me? Concretely: can I examine and modify that data using tools of <em>my</em> choosing which are built for <em>my</em> needs?</p>
<p>Does Corporation X act as though I own my on-line life, or as though it does? Concretely: Can I control what data it shares with other users, with advertisers, and with business partners?</p>
<p>Does Corporation X behave like a tool in my hand, or a firehose designed to  spew at me in accordance with other peoples&#8217; agendas?  Concretely: can I write my own client to present a filtered view of the Corporation X data stream, or have other people do that for me?</p>
<p>No prize for guessing that &#8220;the hacker way&#8221; is to give control to the individual, to respect his or her privacy, to create tools for autonomy and liberty, and to encourage creative re-use of software.</p>
<p>And yes, one of the most basic questions is &#8220;Does Corporation X publish the source code of its user-facing software in a form that can easily be understood, modified, and reused?&#8221;  Because if the answer to that question is &#8220;no&#8221;, it is very unlikely that users will or ever <em>can</em> have the control of their on-line lives that they deserve.</p>
<p>UPDATE: Now that the <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/06/the-hacker-way-and-facebook/">article has been published</a>, I can confirm that &#8220;Corporation X&#8221; is indeed Facebook.</p>
