Paul Graham is a painter, programmer, essayist, and a very smart man. He writes about many subjects — programming, start-up companies, painting, education — and portrays accurate, well defended points of view, that are often the opposite of the mainstream school of though (a distinction he outlines in "What you can't say".) This makes him a fascinating and refreshing writer.

In "The word 'Hacker'" (English source), he advocates a more realistic approach towards hackers, while criticizing systems for managing copyrights (DRM), and compares Hacker's disobedience — which leads to strides of advancements as the fuel of the computer industry, with American unruliness — which lead to the founding of the United States as an ideal to it's founders.

Translating this article to Hebrew seemed an obvious decision — the spirit of innovation and originality Graham associates with the American spirit, sounds strikingly similar to the innovation and originality that blesses the Israeli people, and the Israeli high-tech industry in particular. Is Israel about to face the same crucial decisions now facing the United States?

"The word 'Hacker'" in Hebrew – translated by Ran Yaniv Hartstein.

The original English source of "The word 'Hacker'" – by Paul Graham.