The hacker ethic is a philosophy and set of moral values within hacker culture. Practitioners believe that sharing information and data with others is an ethical imperative.

<philosophy> 1. The belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and to computing resources wherever possible. 2. The belief that system-cracking for fun and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality. Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no means universally, accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and giving away free software. A few go further and assert that *all* information should be free and *any* proprietary control of it is bad; this is the philosophy behind the GNU project. Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering. But the belief that "ethical" cracking excludes destruction at least moderates the behaviour of people who see themselves as "benign" crackers (see also samurai). On this view, it may be one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop, preferably by e-mail from a superuser account, exactly how it was done and how the hole can be plugged - acting as an unpaid (and unsolicited) tiger team. The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker ethic is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing resources with other hackers. Huge cooperative networks such as Usenet, FidoNet and Internet (see Internet address) can function without central control because of this trait; they both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be hackerdom's most valuable intangible asset. (1995-12-18)

The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age is a book released in 2001, and written by Pekka Himanen, with prologue written by Linus Torvalds and the epilogue written by Manuel Castells.Book entry at acm.

David John Hacker (born 25 March 1964) is a British former field hockey player who competed in the 2000 Summer Olympics.

Jonathan Hacker is an electrical engineer at Teledyne Scientific and Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California, and was named Teledyne's Technologist of the Year in 2011. Hacker was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2015 for his contributions to terahertz integrated circuits and devices.

Jacob Stewart Hacker (born 1971) is an American professor and political scientist. He is the director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and a professor of political science at Yale University.

The consistent life ethic, also known as the consistent ethic of life or whole life ethic, is an ideology that opposes abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Adherents oppose war, or at the very least, unjust war; some adherents go as far as full pacifism and so oppose all war.

<person, jargon> (Originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe) 1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary. 2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating hack value. 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in "a Unix hacker". (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker, for example. 7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations. 8. (Deprecated) A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker". The correct term is cracker. The term "hacker" also tends to connote membership in the global community defined by the net (see The Network and Internet address). It also implies that the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the {hacker ethic}. It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. Thus while it is gratifying to be called a hacker, false claimants to the title are quickly labelled as "bogus" or a "wannabee". 9. (University of Maryland, rare) A programmer who does not understand proper programming techniques and principles and doesn't have a Computer Science degree. Someone who just bangs on the keyboard until something happens. For example, "This program is nothing but spaghetti code. It must have been written by a hacker". [Jargon File] (1996-08-26)

One who hacks; a person who performs her tasks with poor quality results.
Look at Steve's roofing job. It's a terrible wreck, a mess performed by the ultimate hacker.