I don't agree that everyone in the tech world agrees on the term.
When I was in school (late 90s/2000), one of our professors made a clear distinction between "hacker mentality" and "software engineer mentality"–emphasizing that the latter was professional/preferred and the former was undesirable/rogue.
To him, a "hacker" didn't plan, didn't show an engineering thought-process, didn't think long-term, and wasn't a team player.
So, at least in academia, not everyone thinks "hackers" are good.
Even some of the people we would call "hackers" consider a "hack" to be a temporary fix they put in that's meant to work until they have the opportunity to do it right.
When I was in school (late 90s/2000), one of our professors made a clear distinction between "hacker mentality" and "software engineer mentality"–emphasizing that the latter was professional/preferred and the former was undesirable/rogue.
To him, a "hacker" didn't plan, didn't show an engineering thought-process, didn't think long-term, and wasn't a team player.
So, at least in academia, not everyone thinks "hackers" are good.