clone: n. 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. [obs] PC clone: a
PC-BUS/ISA/EISA/PCI-compatible 80x86-based microcomputer (this use is
sometimes spelled klone or PClone). These invariably have much more bang
for the buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble. This term fell out of
use in the 1990s; the class of machines it describes are now simply
PCs or Intel machines.
5. [obs.] In the construction Unix
clone: An OS designed to deliver a Unix-lookalike environment
without Unix license fees, or with additional
‘mission-critical’ features such as support for real-time
programming. Linux and the free BSDs killed off
this product category and the term with it.
6. v. To make an exact copy of
something. “Let me clone that” might mean “I want to
borrow that paper so I can make a photocopy” or “Let me get a
copy of that file before you mung it”.