Erhardt Graeff

Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking by Gabriella Coleman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A carefully argued book written by a savvy anthropologist. The main thrust of the book is the assertion that free software hackers or programmers practice a unique form of liberal politics through their “free” labor in creating a common or public good in the form of free software (she focuses on the Debian operating system), and in stewarding the legal freedom that users and contributors enjoy by using such software. Biella argues that several aspects of this technical and philosophical or ethical work lead to its success and have changed the way people think of intellectual property and public goods in other fields.

Biella does a great job of taking the reader through a history of free software and into the lives of free software programmers/hackers through their IRC chats, code snippets, jokes, and personal histories. As far as ethnography goes, this is a very accessible read. There is still a lot of jargon, both social scientific jargon and technical jargon, but the writing is clear. Her choice to use in-line parenthetical citations also helps to flag jargon that is meant to speak to a specific academic audience, letting the lay reader off the hook a bit.

It’s definitely a must-read for students of intellectual property law, software history, digital culture, and media activism

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The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network by Katherine Losse

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is Katherine Losse’s memoir about working at Facebook. It’s a fascinating look into the personal politics and ideologies of Facebook and Silicon Valley. She is employee 51 at the company, working in customer service after seeking a change of pace following her disenchantment with the PhD in English she was pursuing. She works her way up, playing the game and buying into the mission, and eventually tops out as Mark Zuckerberg’s ghost writer. Zuck, Sheryl Sandberg, Dustin Moskovitz all show up in the text and we get windows into their personalities. It’s the author’s detailed notes on these individuals and the growth of the company internally which serves as the key contribution of the book.

Unfortunately, the writing is a bit awkward. The personal anecdotes, glimpses of love, and social outings are all documented through the lens of how Facebook is changing how we relate, emote, and think. Her reflections and philosophizing get repetitive. I don’t think her observations are necessarily inaccurate but they feel belabored in the book. She also feels compelled to explain a lot of internet culture and hacker jargon, which interrupts the flow of the story. In the end, I enjoyed the story but feel like it could have used a heavier hand in editing as it tries to be both a memoir and an ethnography, and feels a bit off center as a result.

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