In the Foreword to the conference proceedings on 5 October 1989 I wrote:
"Through combining these audiences, we assumed that the overall effect of those three days in August could be more intense: philosophers having to confront real possibilities and frontiers of technology and hackers realising that their deeds do affect the way society and history develop. By emphasizing the culture that is created through the existence of the hacker dream, we could both make ourselves an environment that is full of rumours and undefined ideas, as well as a meeting point for people living in very different parts of the world, all using technology to realise their wishes and convictions in this life. For us the hacker dream concerns the freedom to invent, the right to know and the need to act. (... ) We started off... made the first rough drafts of the programme, planned our budget and sent messages over the networks to get in touch with other people interested in our idea. It soon appeared that organizing a conference like this only through computers is not possible. One needs to know people and a telephone and a fax-machine can be very useful. (Riemens 1989, 1)."