:05:01
for the Free Software Movement.
:05:04
Without these contributions,
:05:06
it's unlikely that Linux and Open Source
:05:09
would have evolved in to their current forms today
:05:12
I joined the
MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971,
:05:17
I joined... a thriving community of hackers,
:05:23
people who loved programming,
:05:24
loved exploring the what they could do
with computers.
:05:29
And they had developed
a complete Operating System,
:05:32
entirely written there.
:05:36
And I became one of the team, that
:05:39
continued to improve the Operating System,
adding new capabilities
:05:43
That was my job, and I loved it, we all loved it.
That's why we were doing it.
:05:48
And [clears throat] we called our system
:05:52
"the Incompatible Time Sharing System"
:05:56
which is an example of the
:05:57
playful spirit
:05:59
which defines a hacker.
:06:02
Hackers are people who enjoy
playful cleverness.
:06:06
Well, it first started going wrong
:06:09
as the outside world started pressuring us
to have passwords.
:06:14
We didn't have any passwords
on our computer.
:06:18
And the reason was that the hackers
:06:20
who'd originally designed the system
:06:23
realized that passwords were a way
the administrators could control all the users.
:06:30
And they didn't want to build tools
:06:33
you know, locks and keys for
the administrators to control them,
:06:38
so they just didn't do it.
They left that out
:06:41
And we had the philosophy
that whoever sitting at the computer
:06:45
should be able to do whatever he wants
:06:49
and somebody else who was there yesterday
shouldn't be controlling what you do today
:06:55
When they put passwords onto one of
the machines at MIT