Concept

Vanilla software

Summary
In computer science, vanilla describes software, hardware or algorithms that have not been customized or modified from their original form. The term "Vanilla software" has become a widespread de facto industry standard, widely used by businesses and individuals. The term comes from the traditional standard flavor of ice cream, vanilla. According to Eric S. Raymond's The New Hacker's Dictionary, "vanilla" means more "default" than "ordinary". Examples of how to use "vanilla" in a sentence:
  • As one of the earliest examples, IBM's mainframe text publishing system BookMaster, provides a default way to specify which parts of a book to publish, called "vanilla", and a fancier way, called "mocha".
  • The term "vanilla" is sometimes also used for hardware components. For instance, in the 1990s non-upgraded Amiga home computers were called "(plain) vanilla"; similarly, it was later also applied to PC parts.
  • For Unix-based kernels, a "vanilla kernel" is a kernel that has been unmodified by
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