less_retarded_wiki/jargon_file.md
Miloslav Ciz cce9ab1229 Update
2022-05-14 18:38:05 +02:00

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Jargon File

Jargon File (also Hacker's Dictionary) is a computer hacker dictionary/compendium that's been written and updated by a number of prominent hackers, such as Richard Stallman and Erik S Raymond, since 1970. It is a greatly important part of hacker culture and has also partly inspired this very wiki.

It informally states that it's in the public domain and some people have successfully published it commercially, however there is no standard waiver or license -- maybe because such waivers didn't really exist at the time it was started -- and so we have to suppose it is NOT formally free as in freedom. Nevertheless it is freely accessible e.g. at Project Gutenberg and no one will bother you if you share it around... we just wouldn't recommend treating it as true public domain.

It is pretty nicely written with great amount of humor and good old political incorrectness, you can e.g. find the definition of terms such as rape and clit mouse. Some other nice terms include notwork (non-functioning network), Internet Exploiter, binary four (giving a finger in binary) or Maggotbox (Macintosh). At the beginning the book gives some theory about how the hacker terms are formed (overgeneralization, comparatives etc.).