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galen · 2916 days ago · link · · parent · post: Hubski's intermittent, inconsistent, posted whenever, by whoever, bookthread
Ooh I finally have one! Currently making my way through Chris Kelty's Two Bits (available for free here whenever I have time. It's an anthropological study of free software, but along the way he talks a lot about the history and development of computers, the internet, and geek/hacker culture. Super interesting! His main contention is that free software and the internet exist as "recursive publics," a term he uses to describe publics (after Habermas, spaces of debate and contention existing outside the state and the market) which are interested in the infrastructure in which they exist. So geeks are a group organized around pushing forward their idea of what computers, the internet, and free software ought to be. If that makes sense.