deskthority

It occurred to me earlier that we don't have an "official" definition of a clone of anything. For switches, I happen to agree with the definition of Alps clone that he wrote on the wiki (under Category:Clones of Alps CM switches), so that is what I've used ever since, but it's not an official definition, arguably both helpful and unhelpful depending on your perspective on classification.

However, there's no single agreed-upon definition of a clone of anything, so I've written up a summary of it here:

[wiki]Clone[/wiki]

Yeah, I'd agree that we use the term "clone" quite freely...

I don't really use it a lot, but it makes sense to use. My personal criteria for it's use:

• Clearly copied (non-licensed)
• Derived/licensed (mainly just a logo change)
• Clearly copied + modified
• Derived + modified

I would actually argue that a derived/licensed switch design is not a clone. But it's very hard to prove such things, so leaving it as a clone simplifies things.

Switches that are "inspired" or compatible Blue NEC switches for example, are not really clones (pretty sure at least).