Hacking Computers to the tune of Waltzing Matilda Once a jolly hacker sat beside a Linux box, Writing some software to share for free, And he sang as he sat and waited 'til his code compiled, "You'll come a-hacking computers with me." [Chorus] "Hacking computers, hacking computers, You'll come a-hacking computers with me" And he sang as he sat and waited 'til his code compiled, "You'll come a-hacking computers with me." In went a DVD, to play on that Linux box, Up jumped the hacker, who danced with glee. And he sang as he put that software on the Internet, "You'll come a-hacking computers with me." Up rode a lawyer, to lord over that Linux box, Up rode the folks that hate MP3, "Where's the software you wrote to use and play our DVDs? You've been a-hacking computers we see!" Glad were the users for access to the DVDs, "You'll never squash it online" said he! And his code can be heard as you wander on the Internet. "Who'll come a-hacking computers with me?" By Neal McBurnett, 2001-02-15T14:54 http://mcburnett.org/neal/talks/hacker inspired by Jon Lech Johansen and the DeCSS program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS With apologies to Peter da Silva and Banjo Patterson http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/homes/spaf/Yucks/V4/msg00019.html Yucks Digest Mon, 8 Aug 94 Peter da Silva sent 17 Jul 1994 06:35:54 A 3rd-generation parody via "cracking computers" at http://dream.toneware.com/waltzing.htm with thanks to Roger Clarke and his site at http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/WM/ "Hacking" a computer was originally clearly understood as part of the honorable tradition of making things work in useful and innovative ways. More recent use of the term in association with computer crime is deplored by many, who prefer the term "cracking" for criminal behavior. http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/WM/WMTerms.html So the poem (doggerel? folk song?) can be interpreted as yet another Aussie complaint about them in authority. We're one of the most urbanised nations in the world, who sort-of yearn for the wide open spaces (there's so much of it out there!), and the freedom that goes with it (or at least seems to go with it, to those that don't live there). So Waltzing Matilda strikes a chord (so to speak), generation after generation, for the same reason that Crocodile Dundee was as popular here as anywhere else - we know we're not like that; but it's fun pretending for a while that we are.