Comment by mxuribe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mxuribe | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry to loop in software/tech...but...

I remember once years ago explaining to a co-worker about how i felt that free and open source software (FOSS) in general - but linux (oh sorry, gnu linux) as a specific example - as being the punk equivalent but in tech. The person i explained it to was a techy at a large enterprise, and really understood it once i explained in those terms. My co-worker was your typical buttoned-up very nice guy, he had only been exposed to the conventional corporate ms windows platforms, etc...So, while he likely wouldn't go out and listen to punk nor go play with installing slackware or debian, etc...he really respected linux (and the rest of FOSS) BECAUSE of the context that i put them in as a comparison to punk. I haven't worked with him for years now...i wonder what he thinks now that linux and FOSS are everywhere - well everywhere but under blankets of corporations like google (android), and others, etc.? I wonder if he still thinks of linux as punk - as i had described to him long ago?

When I think of punks of the tech industry I think of the Homebrew Computer Club. I've tried looking for a similar community but these seem to be few and far between.

I lot of the tech communities around where I live seem to only be interested in "startupping", seed funding and networking rather than experimenting and pushing tech itself. Hackathons, where I used to find a few punks years ago, are now filled with people mildly interested in tech and big corporate sponsors.

Maybe it's the fact that technology keeps getting more complex and thus a few punk hackers are not enough to really disrupt it.

I don't think complexity is the reason. The abstraction levels also keep growing higher, and that keeps the ability to hack alive and well.

So much money has pushed into IT and 'innovation' that you are seeing Wall Street types in the field. We are now in a "PUNK IS DEAD LONG LIVE HAIR METAL" phase.

I grew up in the early 90s in the pre-Internet days, so my idea of "punk tech" came from the old greybeards who wanted to hack on hardware, software and everything along the way. I think that spirit still jumps around by curiosity and idealism, usually through some new technology (like Mastodon, or cryptocurrency in the early days) or is satisfied with goalless explorations of tech, like tilde.club or a lot of the early hackathons and maker trends (3D printing, drones, battle bots, etc.)

Yeah Linux wouldn't be the only "punk tech"; and fediverse, crypto currency, and the hardware stuff you referenced would certainly classify as punk tech in my book too! Thanks for that!

> Maybe it's the fact that technology keeps getting more complex

This is a component of it, but I believe the conclusion you draw is a faulty one. I can relate, though, because I once had the same lamentation.

Hackers, in the traditional sense, have just moved on to more specialized and niche communities because the technology space became more complex and specialized itself.

Generalized "hacker" communities are not going to draw in people with specialized skills and interests, unless they have an interest in content creation or pedagogy. You'll find them in other communities that interest them.

I think you're more likely to find the punks in cyber security these days.

Yeah I could see that!

You can have a Punk attitude in the software tech scene, many years ago, I was one of the first to write a blitter that could scale a QuickTime movie decompressing in real-time 320x240 to full-screen 640x480. To do that I had to use floating point math instructions to write on the screen. This was giving me double bandwidth.

This means you had to bypass the whole QuickDraw API and overwrite the screen yourself, that was a fun time!

Nice!!!

He probably still thinks of linux as punk as he happily spends his days configuring Sales Force.

You're probably right!

I would more see Linux closer to hippies, too much peace and love there and not enough destroy attitude, don't you think?

I guess one could argue that. I sort of saw Linux as more of the anti-establishment angle.

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