A Hacker Manifesto, Twenty Years On

A Hacker Manifesto, first written in 1999 and published by Harvard University Press in 2004, set its writer on a path that has continued for about twenty-five years. The book is described as a critique of emerging digital power rather than a utopian vision, arguing that the mode of production might be mutating because the value chain could be controlled by owning the vectors of information. The text also frames avant-gardes as advanced forms of collaborative, creative, mediated labor, and introduces a special issue of contributors who engage the book and its context.