, Up:
Helping Hacker Culture Grow
If you enjoyed the Jargon File, please help the culture that created it grow and flourish. Here are several ways you can help:
• If you are a writer or journalist, don't say or write [hacker] when you mean [cracker]. If you work with writers or journalists, educate them on this issue and push them to do the right thing. If you catch a newspaper or magazine abusing the work `hacker', write them and straighten them out (this appendix includes a model letter).
• If you're a techie or computer hobbyist, get involved with one of the free Unixes. Toss out that lame Microsoft OS, or confine it to one disk partition and put Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD on the other one. And the next time your friend or boss is thinking about some proprietary software `solution' that costs more than it's worth, be ready to blow the competition away with open-source software running over a Unix.
• Contribute to organizations like the Free Software Foundation that promote the production of high-quality free and open-source software. You can reach the Free Software Foundation at gnu@gnu.org, by phone at +1-617-542-5942, or by snail-mail at 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.
• Support the League for Programming Freedom, which opposes over-broad software patents that constantly threaten to blow up in hackers' faces, preventing them from developing innovative software for tomorrow's needs. You can reach the League for Programming Freedom at lpf@uunet.uu.net. by phone at +1 617 621 7084, or by snail-mail at 1 Kendall Square #143, P.O.Box 9171, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 USA.
• Join the continuing fight against Internet censorship, visit the Center for Democracy and Technology Home Page at http://www.cdt.org.