"Stark: Could you explain why the emergence of nonprofit foundations in the hacker culture appears to be a contradiction in terms?
"O'Mahony: The hacker culture prizes autonomy and self-determination. Eric Raymond defines hackers as those who love programming for the sake of doing it, for the sake of obsessively solving a problem. Thus, hackers who contribute to the open source community are often intrinsically motivated.
"It is important to realize, however, that hackers are a diverse group. I have interviewed hobbyists, students, academics, software professionals, and government workers who identify themselves as hackers. It is not safe to generalize about all of the values that hackers share, but they tend to agree on at least one thing: Respect must be earned and cannot be derived from position..."
