Ultimately, 'hacking' is a family resemblance concept. Some hackers emphasise playfulness, sharing and community while others emphasize moving fast to minimise risk and maximise commercial advantage. In my view, the idea of learning through fast, cheap, iterated experiments is what links these various modes of hacking together. There are also key cultural features of the hacker way that cluster around experimental practice as necessary conditions, such as the beginner’s mindset, bias to action, defaulting to openness and transparency (though, contrary to RMS, you don’t need to be a free software fanatic to be a hacker), etc.