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| | | Curious Bedfellows | |
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< | What do South by Southwest, the UK’s Society for Computers and Law, and workplace equality thought leader Caren Ulrich Stacey have in common? At a minimum, a shared enthusiasm for hackathons. ‘Hackathon’ is a term in present day parlance, particularly in the dialects of its follower fraternities, like the US tech collective. The word is a portmanteau of ‘hack’ and ‘marathon,’ defined by Major League Hacking as an ‘invention marathon’. In recent years the concept and practice has been exported and taken up en masse as a collaborative, multidisciplinary site for brainstorming tech-based interventions to a raft of issues. Collaborative learning, building, and creation sharing characterize hackathons. The events are often hosted over a weekend in a relaxed and welcoming, community ambiance. Today, the barrier to participation entry is not a suite of programming qualifications. Any individual who has an interest in technology or the issue being hacked can attend. Take South by Southwest for example, the feted, trendy Texan festival. South by Southwest invites hackers, creators, makers, and coders to converge. Hackers compete in three hack categories, Music, Film, and VR/A, over 24 hours, to ‘push the boundaries of existing tech across entertainment media’. Ulrich Stacey, founder and CEO of DiversityLab? , led the 2015 Women in Law Hackathon to create new ideas to disrupt the stagnant dialogue vis-à-vis diversity in BigLaw? . Participants included Stanford Law students, partners from major global law firms, and diversity and leadership gurus. Even at the University of Chicago, there are hackathon competitions across disciplines to create projects in 24 or 48 hours. | >
> | What do South by Southwest, the UK’s Society for Computers and Law, and workplace equality thought leader Caren Ulrich Stacey have in common? At a minimum, a shared enthusiasm for hackathons. ‘Hackathon’ is a portmanteau of ‘hack’ and ‘marathon,’ defined by Major League Hacking as an ‘invention marathon’. In recent years the concept and practice has been exported and taken up as a collaborative, multidisciplinary learning site for brainstorming tech-based interventions to a raft of issues. The events are often hosted over a weekend in a relaxed and welcoming, community ambiance. Any individual who has an interest in technology or the issue being hacked can attend. Take South by Southwest for example, which invites hackers, creators, makers, and coders to converge. Hackers compete in three hack categories, Music, Film, and VR/A, to ‘push the boundaries of existing tech across entertainment media’. Ulrich Stacey, founder and CEO of DiversityLab? , led the 2015 Women in Law Hackathon to create new ideas to disrupt the stagnant dialogue vis-à-vis diversity in BigLaw? . Even at the University of Chicago, there are hackathon competitions across disciplines to create projects in 24 or 48 hours. | | |
Recent History | |
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< | Hackathons have not always been as proximate as they are now to household name status. They first entered the tech stratosphere circa 1999, when companies such as Open BSD and Sun Microsystems held in-company hackathons. These localized, in-house events were more common at the outset. Hackathons then gained mainstream traction in 2013. Growing computing capabilities have changed the hackathon landscape and increased participants’ ability to progress solutions predicated on software, quite literally, overnight. | >
> | Hackathons have not always been as proximate as they are now to household name status. They first entered the tech stratosphere circa 1999, when companies such as Open BSD and Sun Microsystems held in-company hackathons. Hackathons then gained mainstream traction in 2013. Growing computing capabilities have increased participants’ ability to progress solutions predicated on software, quite literally, overnight.
Anti-Hackathon Hackathons
There’s no want of hackathon naysayers. Critiques are articulated on several bases. These include:
- • hackathons are form of labor appropriation due to work not being remunerated;
- • hackathons are bad for innovation (creating a false sense of success, tackling stripped down challenges that are divorced from reality); and
- • hackathons are bad for health (sleep deprivation, junk food, booze, and caffeine being a potent combination).
The first critique admittedly has weight in the context of corporate or corporate-sponsored hackathons. In the public interest context however, it reads as the 21st century equivalent of critiquing a fundraising bake sale for being predicated on volunteers’ cake making. That criticism ignores the underlying motivating psychology of those preparing blondies and caramel slices, namely, the desire to contribute to others. The second critique seems premature. There is no substantive body of academic literature on hackathons given their nascence. The third provides a challenge to organizers (provide fresh fruit in addition to confectionery, in lieu of just the latter) but also should be contextualized – unless a true hackathon fanatic, the maxim everything in moderation suffices to respond. | | |
The Software Sausage Factory | |
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< | The ingredients of commercial software, like sausages, are often out of sight and out of mind, problematically inaccessible to the consumer. This begs the question – is hackathon-produced software free? More precisely, do hackathons advocate for anarchist production and promote the development of software that has a positive relationship with freedom? | >
> | The ingredients of commercial software are often out of sight and out of mind, problematically inaccessible to the consumer. This begs the question – is hackathon-produced software free? Do hackathons promote the development of software that has a positive relationship with freedom? | | |
Conflict of Interest | | | If you ever release or use this code or design, you will release its source code under a free (libre) license. If you distribute the code in executable form, you will make that free (libre) also. | |
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< | Happily, these are not difficult steps to bake into the foundations of a hackathon event. They require very little of the organizer and can hardly be skirted out of perceived inconvenience. Requesting a pledge can also function to encourage participants to be forward looking. Ending a hackathon with a pledge request, can, for example, situate hackathon attendees to contemplate the aftermath of their 24 hour pow-wow, to think about how their solution might grow legs. | >
> | Happily, these are facile steps to bake into a hackathon's foundations. They require little of the organizer and can hardly be skirted out of perceived inconvenience. Requesting a pledge can also function to encourage participants to be forward looking. Ending a hackathon with a pledge request, can, for example, situate hackathon attendees to contemplate the aftermath of their 24 hour pow-wow, to think about how their solution might grow legs. | | |
The Head Fake | |
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< | When we conceive of the hackathon’s net value add, we might first list the development of practical tools to respond to a pressing, complex problem. Multidisciplinary community building might be listed second. Hackathons serve an expressive function to boot, issuing a reverberating message to society writ large that this our Internet-based epoch and its tech gains offer more than merely facilitating the swift and cost effective delivery of takeaway pad Thai and or butter chicken. Critically, a free software hackathon offers an additional positive externality. A free software hackathon is a head fake, implicitly challenging today’s oppressive software development regime in a forum that ostensibly is working to achieve other objectives.
The popular appeal of the hackathon may one day ground a Trivial Pursuit question. Recalling Ulrich Stacey, and South by Southwest, a question we can conceive of might underscore the curious diversity in people and problems hackathons increasingly attract. A more exhilarating prospective Trivial Pursuit question is 'when did hackathons’ mandating of free software principles become standard practice?' The question in the immediacy therefore becomes how to encourage such a union.
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> | When we conceive of the hackathon’s net value add, we might first list the development of tools to respond to a pressing, complex problem. Multidisciplinary community building might be listed second. Hackathons serve an expressive function to boot, issuing a reverberating message to society writ large that this our Internet-based epoch and its tech gains offer more than merely facilitating the swift and cost effective delivery of takeaway pad Thai and or butter chicken. Critically, a free software hackathon offers an additional positive externality. A free software hackathon is a head fake, implicitly challenging today’s oppressive software development regime in a forum that ostensibly is working to achieve other objectives. The question is how to promote the adoption of free software principles in hackathons en masse – to Ulrich Stacey and SXSW alike. | | | | |
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< | There are also writers who see hackathons as a form of labor appropriation, getting skilled workers to do unremunerated vital work. This isn't my orientation, to be sure, but it does seem to me to merit at least some thought, and in the context of this essay draft, reflective of the Stallman/Moglen view of the world, I was conscious that some engagement with the alternative perspective might be helpful. I do not, otherwise see much room for improvement. | | |
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