clone

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. "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 per buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble.

5. In the construction "Unix clone": An operating system designed to deliver a Unix-like environment without Unix licence fees or with additional "mission-critical" features such as support for real-time programming.

(16 Dec 1994)