A few hours later, another sysadmin drops by the cube to discuss some weird memory issues that are cropping up on one of our internal network servers. But after watching them for a little while, I am bemused by their body language instead of their words. Without doubt, there is a playfulness to their interaction. Hackers, Himanen tells us, have a different relationship to money than normal folks do. They program because programming is intrinsically fascinating, and they share because sharing is righteous.
Hackers share because they can.
And they set their own hours, whenever possible, because they can get away with it. The rest of us cannot. One reason free software is able to flourish is that most hackers are able to earn their livelihood relatively easily, with enough leisure time to hack for the public good. The hours that they do spend working for the Man are well enough compensated to allow them to construct the rest of their lives in whatever fashion they might desire. A McDonald's cashier or a taxi driver is not so lucky.