English Dictionary: UCITS' | by the DICT Development Group |
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]: | |
| |
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]: | |
Use the Source Luke the Force, Luke!" in "Star Wars") A more polite version of {RTFS}. This is a common way of suggesting that someone would be better off reading the source code that supports whatever feature is causing confusion, rather than making yet another futile pass through the manuals, or broadcasting questions on {Usenet} that haven't attracted {wizard}s to answer them. Once upon a time in {Elder Days}, everyone running {Unix} had source. After 1978, {AT&T}'s policy tightened up, so this objurgation was in theory appropriately directed only at associates of some outfit with a Unix {source licence}. In practice, bootlegs of Unix source code (made precisely for reference purposes) were so ubiquitous that one could utter it at almost anyone on {the network} without concern. Nowadays, free Unix clones are becoming common enough that almost anyone can read source legally. The most widely distributed is probably {Linux}. {FreeBSD}, {NetBSD}, {386BSD}, {jolix} also have their followers. Cheap commercial Unix implementations with source such as {BSD/OS} from {BSDI} are accelerating this trend. (1996-01-02) |