Glossary

These terms are used in various philosophical articles on Pin Eight and by some contributors who also post to SoylentNews, Slashdot, NESdev BBS, and other web-based discussion platforms. Choosing words carefully and defining them up front discourages use of loaded language and failure to communicate due to a misunderstood word. Terms particular to the game world are not included in this glossary.

A

 * all maximized all the time
 * Capable of showing only one application's user interface at once due to window management policy, even though the underlying operating system supports multitasking. (See User:Tepples/tablets.)


 * assets
 * Those parts of a work consisting of a computer program and other (largely audiovisual) authorship, such as a video game, other than the program itself. (After the F-Droid repository's list of "anti-features". Free Software Foundation's style guide discourages this term but provides no replacement covering similar semantic space. This gap appears to arise from the historical failure of the free software movement to turn a profit on creating original fictional assets; see Genres of non-free software.)

C

 * copyleft
 * 1. ShareAlike with the additional requirement to make a derivative work's source code available. Said of a copyright license.
 * 2. To apply a copyleft license to (a work).


 * copyright owner
 * The author of a work or the person to whom copyright in a work was assigned. (After the term in Title 17, United States Code. This term is unusual in that the Free Software Foundation's style guide discourages the term used in a statute. This contrasts with other entries in the style guide that encourage precision by using the statute's terms, such as "author" over "creator" and "infringement" over "piracy" and "theft".)


 * Copyrobeast
 * Any automated means to detect copyrighted material uploaded by users of a media hosting service, when false matches cause serious inconvenience for noninfringing users. (By comparison to the villains from the animated television series Voltron.)

E

 * evolved from
 * Shared a common ancestor closely resembling the latter species. Said of a pair of modern species or other taxa, such as whales and hippos.

F

 * Folkwell
 * Any slab-serif typeface with an irregular or "bouncy" quality.


 * free cultural works
 * Works of authorship, other than computer programs, distributed in a way that allows end users to share and improve them, particularly under a copyright license granting these rights to the public.


 * free software
 * Computer programs distributed in a way that allows end users to share and improve them, particularly with source code published under a copyright license granting these rights to the public.

G

 * gamer
 * User of video games.


 * gender
 * 1. One of a small set of classes lexically assigned to nouns that induces grammatical agreement in other parts of speech, commonly adjectives and pronouns. It binds tighter than number or case (Greenberg universal #39).
 * 2. One of two or sometimes more classes of personality and expression recognized by a culture, particularly those historically correlated with the sexes.


 * GNU/Linux
 * An operating system including Linux as its kernel, GNU Coreutils, and at least two other major components of the GNU operating system. The term is useful to distinguish these systems from Android or embedded systems using Linux.

H

 * hacker
 * Someone who enjoys playful cleverness. Contrast with "intruder".


 * hate crime
 * A crime whose motive includes bias against the victim's ethnicity, gender, or disability.


 * hate speech
 * Encouraging others to behave in a way that is biased against people of a marginalized ethnicity, gender, or disability.


 * HTPC
 * Home theater PC, generic term for a personal computer using a television as its monitor. An HTPC with a suitable graphics processor can replace a video game console.

I

 * intruder
 * Someone who bypasses the security of a property, such as a building or computer system, in order to commit a crime or intentional tort. Contrast with "hacker" and "pen tester".

J

 * Java-trapped
 * Distributed as free software but with unavoidable non-free dependencies. (After a 2004 article by Richard Stallman describing the status of programs written in the Java programming language prior to the release of OpenJDK.)

M

 * main
 * A computing device that has control over another device (the sub) through some protocol. For example, in Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI), the main device generates the clock signal. (After terminology used in Nintendo's Vs. System arcade platform and Sega's Mega CD accessory. Replaces "master", which alludes to treatment of human beings as property.)


 * monkeysphere
 * A group of individuals with a size close to Dunbar's number (150 for humans), especially such a group with which a particular individual regularly interacts. (After David Wong's article "What Is the Monkeysphere?", an accessible, lighthearted look at the effects of Dunbar's number.)

P

 * PC Master Race
 * The community of gamers who choose to be their own masters by using a PC rather than being a slave to a video game console maker. Oppose "peasant". (Coined in a review by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of the video game The Witcher.)


 * peasant
 * 1. A farmer on leased land.
 * 2. A gamer who prefers consoles for any of several reasons despite their inflexibility. Oppose "PC Master Race".


 * penetration tester, pen tester
 * Someone who bypasses the security of a property in order to help the property's owner improve its security. Contrast with "intruder".


 * personal computer, PC
 * A computing device that allows the person who owns it to control what computing is done on it.


 * piracy
 * Robbery on the high seas. Contrast with "infringement".


 * product identity
 * Title of a work, setting and plot elements, character names, likenesses, and dialogue, and other expressive elements of a work, as opposed to (say) the mechanics of its physics or magic system. (Defined as such in Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License.)


 * proletarian, prole
 * 1. Someone with capacity to work who does not own land, tools, or other related means of production.
 * 2. A console peasant. (Endonym of the Console Proletariat, the rival to the PC Master Race community on Reddit.)

S

 * ShareAlike
 * Requiring derivative works to be distributed under the same terms, usually as free software or free cultural works. Said of a copyright license.


 * source code
 * "The preferred form of a work for making modifications to it." (Defined as such in the GNU General Public License, versions 2 and 3.)


 * -sson, -sdaughter
 * Having only a given name, with no surname recorded or even existing, but with a parent's given name available and distinctive. Said of a historical person or fictional character. (English calque of the Icelandic patronymic convention.)


 * sub
 * A computing device controlled by a main device. (After terminology used in Nintendo's Vs. System arcade platform and Sega's Mega CD accessory. Replaces "slave", which alludes to treatment of human beings as property.)


 * super-deformed
 * Depicting humans older than toddlers with exaggerated cuteness that makes the head longer than the torso and/or wider than the shoulders. Said of a pictorial, graphic, sculptural, or audiovisual work.

T

 * tall
 * Having demonstrated experience directing commercial projects with a budget over a particular amount. Said of someone seeking to create and distribute a video game or other work, especially when a monopoly or cartel of distributors use experience, budget, or full-time status as the primary entry barriers. Often used in expressions to the effect "must be this tall" or "not tall enough", by analogy with height requirements for amusement rides.


 * TLS certificate
 * An X.509 public key certificate issued by a certificate authority trusted by web browser publishers, where the certificate's  (SAN) field identifies one or more domain names. Sometimes called an "SSL certificate" after Secure Sockets Layer, the predecessor to Transport Layer Security.


 * trouser tyranny
 * A belief that a skirted garment, such as a tunic or kilt, ought to be exclusive to women, even if cut in an otherwise masculine manner.

W

 * without charge
 * Synonym for "gratis" using only common English words. (Borrowed from how Jehovah's Witnesses describe the lack of price for their literature.)

X

 * X11/Linux
 * An operating system including Linux as its kernel and an X11 server, usually the reference server by X.Org. Most popular X11/Linux systems are also GNU/Linux.