To have the choice between proprietary software packages, is being able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master. And in the area of … - Richard Stallman

One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control. It's just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.

It is hard to write a simple definition of something as varied as hacking, but I think what these activities have in common is playfulness, cleverness, and exploration. Thus, hacking means exploring the limits of what is possible, in a spirit of playful cleverness. Activities that display playful cleverness have "hack value".

... totalitarian rulers, established parallel structures to work their will, bypassing rule-bound state structures that were less ready to follow shocking orders ...