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proprietary |
5 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Proprietary \Pro*pri"e*ta*ry\, a. [L. proprietarius.] Belonging, or pertaining, to a proprietor; considered as property; owned; as proprietary medicine. {Proprietary articles}, manufactured articles which some person or persons have exclusive right to make and sell --U. S. Statutes. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Proprietary \Pro*pri"e*ta*ry\, n.; pl {Proprietaries}. [L. proprietarius: cf F. propri['e]taire. See {Propriety}, and cf {Proprietor}.] 1. A proprietor or owner; one who has exclusive title to a thing one who possesses, or holds the title to a thing in his own right --Fuller. 2. A body proprietors, taken collectively. 3. (Eccl.) A monk who had reserved goods and effects to himself, notwithstanding his renunciation of all at the time of profession. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: proprietary adj : protected by trademark or patent or copyright; made or produced or distributed by one having exclusive rights; "`Tylenol' is a proprietary drug of which `acetaminophen' is the generic form" [ant: {nonproprietary}] n : an unincorporated business owned by a single person who is responsible for its liabilities and entitled to its profits [syn: {proprietorship}] From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]: proprietary adj 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior; implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers. 2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in Often in the phrase "proprietary crap". 3. Synonym for closed-source, e.g. software issued in binary without source and under a restrictive license. Since the coining of the term {open source}, many hackers have made a conscious effort to distinguish between `proprietary' and `commercial' software. It is possible for software to be commercial (that is intended to make a profit for the producers) without being proprietary. The reverse is also possible, for example in binary-only freeware. From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]: proprietary 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior; implies a product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of the company's own hardware or software designers. 2. In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to {open-systems} {standard}s, and thus one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor who can inflate service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in [{Jargon File}]
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