clone
:clone: n. 1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of their
product." Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by
reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower price. 2. A shoddy, spurious
copy: "Their product is a clone of our product." 3. A blatant ripoff,
most likely violating copyright, patent, or trade secret protections:
"Your product is a clone of my product." This use implies legal action
is pending. 4. [obs] `PC clone:' a PC-BUS/ISA or EISA-compatible
80x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes spelled `klone' or
`PClone'). These invariably have much more bang for the buck than the
IBM archetypes they resemble. This term fell out of use in the 1990s;
the class of machines it describes are now simply `PCs' or `Intel
machines'. 5. [obs.] In the construction `Unix clone': An OS designed to
deliver a Unix-lookalike environment without Unix license fees, or with
additional `mission-critical' features such as support for real-time
programming. Linux
and the free BSDs killed off this product category
and the term with it. 6. v. To make an exact copy of something. "Let me
clone that" might mean "I want to borrow that paper so I can make a
photocopy" or "Let me get a copy of that file before you mung
it".
Jargon File Version 4.3.1, 29 JUN 2001 =
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