English Dictionary: proprietary | by the DICT Development Group |
5 results for proprietary | |
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: | |
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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[82]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 Jargon File (4.2.0, 31 JAN 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 restructive 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 (15Feb98) [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}] |