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for freeadj.
[common] Said of a capability of a programming language or hardware that is available by its design without needing cleverness to implement: "In APL, we get the matrix operations for free." "And owing to the way revisions are stored in this system, you get revision trees for free." The term usually refers to a serendipitous feature of doing things a certain way (comparebig win), but it may refer to an intentional but secondary feature.
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for the rest of usadj.
[from the Mac slogan "The computer for the rest of us"] 1. Used to describe aspiffyproduct whose affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often) used sarcastically to describespiffybut very overpriced products. 2. Describes a program with a limited interface, deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not `confuse' a naive user. This places an upper bound on how far that user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task instead of helping accomplish it. Used in reference to Macintosh software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is thought that the poor lusers might not be able to handle them. Becomes `the rest ofthem' when used in third-party reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash. See alsoWIMP environment,Macintrash,point-and-drool interface,user-friendly.
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for values of
[MIT] A common rhetorical maneuver at MIT is to use any of the canonicalrandom numbersas placeholders for variables. "The max function takes 42 arguments, for arbitrary values of 42." "There are 69 ways to leave your lover, for 69 = 50." This is especially likely when the speaker has uttered a random number and realizes that it was not recognized as such, but even `non-random' numbers are occasionally used in this fashion. A related joke is that pi equals 3 -- for small values of pi and large values of 3.
Historical note: at MIT this usage has traditionally been traced to the programming language MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder), an Algol-58-like language that was the most common choice among mainstream (non-hacker) users at MIT in the mid-60s. It inherited from Algol-58 a control structure FOR VALUES OF X = 3, 7, 99 DO ... that would repeat the indicated instructions for each value in the list (unlike the usual FOR that only works for arithmetic sequences of values). MAD is long extinct, but similar for-constructs still flourish (e.g., in Unix's shell languages).
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forapl.n.
Plural offorum.
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foregroundvt.
[Unix; common] To bring a task to the top of one'sstackfor immediate processing, and hackers often use it in this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your presentation is due next week, I guess I'd better foreground writing up the design document."
Technically, on a time-sharing system, a task executing in foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to the user; opposebackground. Nowadays this term is primarily associated withUnix, but it appears first to have been used in this sense on OS/360. Normally, there is only one foreground task per terminal (or terminal window); having multiple processes simultaneously reading the keyboard is a good way tolose.
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fork
In the open-source community, a fork is what occurs when two (or more) versions of a software package's source code are being developed in parallel which once shared a common code base, and these multiple versions of the source code have irreconcilable differences between them. This should not be confused with a development branch, which may later be folded back into the original source code base. Nor should it be confused with what happens when a new distribution of Linux or some other distribution is created, because that largely assembles pieces than can and will be used in other distributions without conflict.
Forking is uncommon; in fact, it is so uncommon that individual instances loom large in hacker folklore. Notable in this class were the GCC/EGCS fork (later healed by a merger) and the forks among the FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD operating systems.
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fork bombn.
[Unix] A particular species ofwabbitthat can be written in one line of C (main() {for(;;)fork();}) or shell ($0 & $0 &) on any Unix system, or occasionally created by an egregious coding bug. A fork bomb process `explodes' by recursively spawning copies of itself (using the Unix system callfork(2)). Eventually it eats all the process table entries and effectively wedges the system. Fortunately, fork bombs are relatively easy to spot and kill, so creating one deliberately seldom accomplishes more than to bring the just wrath of the gods down upon the perpetrator. See alsologic bomb.
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forkedadj.,vi.
1. [common after 1997, esp. in the Linux community] An open-source software project is said to have forked or be forked when the project group fissions into two or more parts pursuing separate lines of development (or, less commonly, when a third party unconnected to the project group ). Forking is considered aBad Thing- not merely because it implies a lot of wasted effort in the future, but because forks tend to be accompanied by a great deal of strife and acrimony between the successor groups over issues of legitimacy, succession, and design direction. There is serious social pressure against forking. As a result, major forks (such as the Gnu-Emacs/XEmacs split, the fissionings of the 386BSD group into three daughter project, and the short-lived GCC/EGCS split) are rare enough that they are remembered individually in hacker folklore. 2. [Unix; uncommon; prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] Terminally slow, or dead. Originated when one system was slowed to a snail's pace by an inadvertentfork bomb.
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Fortrash/for'trash/ n.
Hackerism for the FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator) language, referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled semantics.
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fortune cookien.
[WAITS, via Unix; common] A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at logout time. Items from this lexicon have often been used as fortune cookies. Seecookie file.
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forumn.
[Usenet, GEnie, CI$; pl. `fora' or `forums'] Any discussion group accessible through a dial-inBBS, amailing list, or anewsgroup(seethe network). A forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submitpostings for all to read and discussion ensues. Contrast real-time chat viatalk modeor point-to-point personalemail.
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fossiln.
1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as default base for string escapes inC, in spite of the better match of hexadecimal to ASCII and modern byte-addressable architectures. Seedusty deck. 2. More restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility. Example: the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 andBSDUnix tty driver, designed for use with monocase terminals. (In a perversion of the usual backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually been expanded and renamed in some laterUSG Unixreleases as the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.) 3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog Standard Interface Level) driver specification for serial-port access to replace thebrain-deadroutines in the IBM PC ROMs. Fossils are used by most MS-DOSBBSsoftware in preference to the `supported' ROM routines, which do not support interrupt-driven operation or setting speeds above 9600; the use of a semistandard FOSSIL library is preferable to thebare metalserial port programming otherwise required. Since the FOSSIL specification allows additional functionality to be hooked in, drivers that use thehookbut do not provide serial-port access themselves are named with a modifier, as in `video fossil'.
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four-color glossiesn.
1. Literature created bymarketroids that allegedly contains technical specs but which is in fact as superficial as possible without being totallycontent-free. "Forget the four-color glossies, give me the tech ref manuals." Often applied as an indication of superficiality even when the material is printed on ordinary paper in black and white. Four-color-glossy manuals areneveruseful for solving a problem. 2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual pages that don't contain enough information to diagnose why the program doesn't produce the expected or desired output.
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fragn.,v.
[from Vietnam-era U.S. military slang via the games Doom and Quake] 1. To kill another player'savatarin a multiuser game. "I hold the office Quake record with 40 frags." 2. To completely ruin something. "Forget that power supply, the lightning strike fragged it. See alsogib.
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fragileadj.
Synbrittle.
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fredn.
1. The personal name most frequently used as ametasyntactic variable(seefoo). Allegedly popular because it's easy for a non-touch-typist to type on a standard QWERTY keyboard. In Great Britain, `fred', `jim' and `sheila' are common metasyntactic variables because their uppercase versions wereofficialnames given to the 3 memory areas that held I/O status registers on the lovingly-remembered BBC Microcomputer! (It is reported that SHEILA was poked the most often.) UnlikeJ. Random Hackeror `J. Random Loser', the name `fred' has no positive or negative loading (but seeDr. Fred Mbogo). See alsobarney. 2. An acronym for `Flipping Ridiculous Electronic Device'; other F-verbs may be substituted for `flipping'.
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Fred Foobarn.
J. Random Hacker's cousin. Any typical human being, more or less synomous with `someone' except that Fred Foobar can bebackreferenced by name later on. "So Fred Foobar will enter his phone number into the database, and it'll be archived with the others. Months later, when Fred searches..." See alsoBloggs FamilyandDr. Fred Mbogo
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frednet/fred'net/ n.
Used to refer to somerandomand uncommon protocol encountered on a network. "We're implementing bridging in our router to solve the frednet problem."
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free softwaren.
As defined by Richard M. Stallman and used by the Free Software movement, this means software that gives users enough freedom to be used by the free software community. Specifically, users must be free to modify the software for their private use, and free to redistribute it either with or without modifications, either commercially or noncommercially, either gratis or charging a distribution fee. Free software has existed since the dawn of computing; Free Software as a movement began in 1984 with the GNU Project. See alsoopen source.
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freewaren.
[common] Free software, often written by enthusiasts and distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local bulletin boards,Usenet, or other electronic media. At one time, `freeware' was a trademark of Andrew Fluegelman, the author of the well-known MS-DOS comm program PC-TALK III. It wasn't enforced after his mysterious disappearance and presumed death in 1984. Seeshareware,FRS.
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freezev.
To lock an evolving software distribution or document against changes so it can be released with some hope of stability. Carries the strong implication that the item in question will `unfreeze' at some future date. "OK, fix that bug and we'll freeze for release."
There are more specific constructions on this term. A `feature freeze', for example, locks out modifications intended to introduce new features but still allows bugfixes and completion of existing features; a `code freeze' connotes no more changes at all. At Sun Microsystems and elsewhere, one may also hear references to `code slush' -- that is, an almost-but-not-quite frozen state.
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friedadj.
1. [common] Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out. Especially used of hardware brought down by a `power glitch' (seeglitch),drop-outs, a short, or some other electrical event. (Sometimes this literally happens to electronic circuits! In particular, resistors can burn out and transformers can melt down, emitting noxious smoke -- seefriode,SEDandLER. However, this term is also used metaphorically.) Comparefrotzed. 2. [common] Of people, exhausted. Said particularly of those who continue to work in such a state. Often used as an explanation or excuse. "Yeah, I know that fix destroyed the file system, but I was fried when I put it in." Esp. common in conjunction with `brain': "My brain is fried today, I'm very short on sleep."
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frink/frink/ v.
The unknown ur-verb, fill in your own meaning. Found esp. on the Usenet newsgroupalt.fan.lemurs, where it is said that the lemurs know what `frink' means, but they aren't telling. Comparegorets.
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friode/fri:'ohd/ n.
[TMRC] A reversible (that is, fused or blown) diode. Comparefried; see alsoSED,LER.
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fritterwaren.
An excess of capability that serves no productive end. The canonical example is font-diddling software on the Mac (seemacdink); the term describes anything that eats huge amounts of time for quite marginal gains in function but seduces people into using it anyway. See alsowindow shopping.
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