"BDFL" meaning in English

See BDFL in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: BDFLs [plural]
Etymology: Originally applied to Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language. Head templates: {{en-noun}} BDFL (plural BDFLs)
  1. (software, humorous) Initialism of benevolent dictator for life (leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community) Wikipedia link: Guido van Rossum Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, humorous, initialism Alternative form of: benevolent dictator for life (extra: leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community) Categories (topical): People, Software Related terms: BOFH

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for BDFL meaning in English (2.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Originally applied to Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "BDFLs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "BDFL (plural BDFLs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "extra": "leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community",
          "word": "benevolent dictator for life"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Software",
          "orig": "en:Software",
          "parents": [
            "Computing",
            "Media",
            "Technology",
            "Communication",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023, John Mertic, Open Source Projects—Beyond Code: A blueprint for scalable and sustainable open source projects, Packt Publishing Ltd, page 69",
          "text": "BDFL can be a type of governance that is part of a project from the onset, or it can emerge from the do-acracy form described earlier. We most often see the former: Rasmus Lerdorf with PHP, Linus Torvalds with the Linux kernel, and Guido van Rossum with Python.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Initialism of benevolent dictator for life (leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community)"
      ],
      "id": "en-BDFL-en-noun-uT4RigIP",
      "links": [
        [
          "software",
          "software"
        ],
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "benevolent",
          "benevolent#English"
        ],
        [
          "dictator",
          "dictator#English"
        ],
        [
          "for life",
          "for life#English"
        ],
        [
          "open-source",
          "open-source#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(software, humorous) Initialism of benevolent dictator for life (leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community)"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "BOFH"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "humorous",
        "initialism"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "computing",
        "engineering",
        "mathematics",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences",
        "software"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Guido van Rossum"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "BDFL"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Originally applied to Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "BDFLs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "BDFL (plural BDFLs)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "BOFH"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "extra": "leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community",
          "word": "benevolent dictator for life"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English humorous terms",
        "English initialisms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English words without vowels",
        "en:People",
        "en:Software"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2023, John Mertic, Open Source Projects—Beyond Code: A blueprint for scalable and sustainable open source projects, Packt Publishing Ltd, page 69",
          "text": "BDFL can be a type of governance that is part of a project from the onset, or it can emerge from the do-acracy form described earlier. We most often see the former: Rasmus Lerdorf with PHP, Linus Torvalds with the Linux kernel, and Guido van Rossum with Python.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Initialism of benevolent dictator for life (leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community)"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "software",
          "software"
        ],
        [
          "humorous",
          "humorous"
        ],
        [
          "benevolent",
          "benevolent#English"
        ],
        [
          "dictator",
          "dictator#English"
        ],
        [
          "for life",
          "for life#English"
        ],
        [
          "open-source",
          "open-source#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(software, humorous) Initialism of benevolent dictator for life (leader of an open-source software project who retains the final say in disputes or arguments within the community)"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "humorous",
        "initialism"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "computing",
        "engineering",
        "mathematics",
        "natural-sciences",
        "physical-sciences",
        "sciences",
        "software"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Guido van Rossum"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "BDFL"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (1d5a7d1 and 304864d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.