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zararah's review
5.0
"Coding Freedom" is written in a more academic style than I was expecting, but maintains a strong and engaging "storytelling" vibe throughout. The book covered more issues and topics than I had imagined it would; from an anthropological analysis of the typical hacker (which felt oddly like reading a biography of friends of mine!) - to a thorough analysis of Debian, and the F/OSS movement. A particular highlight for me was a section towards the end of the book, which looked at the effects the open source movement has had, and is having, on today's politics and society, and the increasingly important role hackers are having in maintaining and fighting for free and democratic societies.
Overall: highly, highly recommended, both for those who are already involved in F/OSS, or in and around the hacker movement, and wanting to know more, but also to those who are working in, or interested in, current politics more generally speaking. Having an understanding of this world will be nothing but beneficial to those working in politics, and this book is the perfect one to provide that.
(Aside: I'd love to read a similar anthropological analysis of hackers who are coming out of countries with different cultural/political contexts to the ones mentioned here, and I wonder how much crossover there would be...)
Overall: highly, highly recommended, both for those who are already involved in F/OSS, or in and around the hacker movement, and wanting to know more, but also to those who are working in, or interested in, current politics more generally speaking. Having an understanding of this world will be nothing but beneficial to those working in politics, and this book is the perfect one to provide that.
(Aside: I'd love to read a similar anthropological analysis of hackers who are coming out of countries with different cultural/political contexts to the ones mentioned here, and I wonder how much crossover there would be...)
lizshayne's review
4.0
This book was not what I was expecting, which was entirely my own fault because I assumed that everyone interested in the same thing as me is interested in it in the same way that I am. So I was expecting more theory and less story. But, as it turns out, Coleman's ethnography of hackers was so interesting in its own right that, despite not quite getting what I expected out of it, I enjoyed what I got.
There were particular elements that spoke to me, though, especially her focus on the relationship between hacker ideology and 21st century problems of privacy, individuality and the communal. As an introduction to the free/ open source software movement, this book is wonderful and as an exploration of the questions that can be asked in the realm of free (as in speech) software and labor and the politics thereof, I though Coleman did an excellent job.
On an unrelated note, I applaud this new trend of critical thinkers working on issues of freedom and copyleft releasing their ebooks under the Creative Commons license. Not only because it makes it easier for those of us looking to build on their work to afford to, but also because it sets a standard for valuing the work done by the humanities under the same umbrella as open source.
There were particular elements that spoke to me, though, especially her focus on the relationship between hacker ideology and 21st century problems of privacy, individuality and the communal. As an introduction to the free/ open source software movement, this book is wonderful and as an exploration of the questions that can be asked in the realm of free (as in speech) software and labor and the politics thereof, I though Coleman did an excellent job.
On an unrelated note, I applaud this new trend of critical thinkers working on issues of freedom and copyleft releasing their ebooks under the Creative Commons license. Not only because it makes it easier for those of us looking to build on their work to afford to, but also because it sets a standard for valuing the work done by the humanities under the same umbrella as open source.
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