Since I'm a computer geek I may be reading more into the book than is there but the clacks is the definitely an allegory for the computer world. The Grand Trunk represents big buisness computing (MS mostly, IBM Apple and others to a smaller extent). Both drive up prices, provide oft-times crappy service and generally mess people around. The Smoking Gnu represent the Linux movement. "Cracking" is an actual computer term used to describe people who get into computer systems and mess around with them and ...The Woodpecker is a computer virus. GNU (interestingly a self-recursive acronym meaning GNU's not Unix) is the basis of the Linux operating.

To make a short story long, yeah the linesmen are kinda like software engineers. :)