microsoft The new Evil Empire (the old one was IBM). The basic complaints are, as formerly with IBM, that (a) their system designs are horrible botches, (b) we can't get source to fix them, and (c) they throw their weight around a lot. See also Halloween Documents.
     linux ("Linus Unix") /li:'nuks/ (but see below) An implementation of the Unix kernel originally written from scratch with no proprietary code. The kernel runs on Intel and Alpha hardware in the general release, with SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, ARM, Amiga, Atari, and SGI in active development. The SPARC, PowerPC, ARM, PowerMAC - OSF, and 68k ports all support shells, X and networking. The Intel and SPARC versions have reliable symmetric multiprocessing.
The kernel version numbers are significant: the odd numbered series (e.g. 1.3.xx) is the development (or beta) kernel which evolves very quickly. Stable (or release) kernels have even major version numbers (e.g. 1.2.xx).
There is a lot of commercial support for and use of Linux, both by hardware companies such as Digital, IBM, and Apple and numerous smaller network and integration specialists. There are many commercially supported distributions which are generally entirely under the GPL. At least one distribution vendor guarantees Posix compliance. Linux is particularly popular for Internet Service Providers, and there are ports to both parallel supercomputers and embedded microcontrollers. Debian is one popular open source distribution.
Some, including Torvalds, insist on the anomalous pronunciation /li'nuks/, the Jargon File prefers the rarely used /lee'nuhks/ because "Linus" has an /ee/ sound in Swedish, others in the know say /li'niks/, but normal rules demand /li:'nuks/, which is also widely used and agrees with the normal english pronunciation of "Linus".
     ibm /I-B-M/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-infinite number of even less complimentary expansions, including `International Business Machines'. See TLA. These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers long felt toward the `industry leader' (see fear and loathing).
What galled hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level wasn't so much that they were underpowered and overpriced (though that does count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic, crufty, and elephantine ... and you can't _fix_ them -- source code is locked up tight, and programming tools are expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found them. For many years, before Microsoft, IBM was the company hackers loved to hate.
But everything changes. In the 1980s IBM had its own troubles with Microsoft. In the late 1990s IBM re-invented itself as a services company, began to release open-source software through its AlphaWorks group, and began shipping Linux systems and building ties to the Linux community. To the astonishment of all parties, IBM emerged as a friend of the hacker community This lexicon includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM'; these derive from some rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated within IBM's own beleaguered hacker underground.