softcopy /soft'kop-ee/ n.
[by analogy with `hardcopy'] A machine-readable form of
corresponding hardcopy. See bits,
machinable.
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software bloat n.
The results of second-system effect or creeping featuritis.
Commonly cited examples include ls(1), X, BSD, Missed'em-five, and OS/2.
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software hoarding n.
Pejorative term employed by members and adherents of the GNU project to describe the act of holding
software proprietary, keeping it under trade secret or license
terms which prohibit free redistribution and modification. Used
primarily in Free Software Foundation propaganda. For a summary
of related issues, see GNU.
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software laser n.
An optical laser works by bouncing photons back and forth
between two mirrors, one totally reflective and one partially
reflective. If the lasing material (usually a crystal) has the
right properties, photons scattering off the atoms in the crystal
will excite cascades of more photons, all in lockstep. Eventually
the beam will escape through the partially-reflective mirror. One
kind of sorcerer's
apprentice mode involving bounce messages can produce closely
analogous results, with a cascade
of messages escaping to flood nearby systems. By mid-1993 there
had been at least two publicized incidents of this kind.