Glossary

OS - Operating System

SW - Software

HW - Hardware

CPU - Central Processing Unit. A very small pile of interconnected transistors that go off or on and process the incoming instructions requests.

RAM - Random Access Memory. It can be written to, read from, and erased too.
Bigger it is, better it is for the CPU and OS. And user.

ROM - Read-Only Memory. It can not be written to by the user or OS. Usually contains an instruction set.

BIOS - Basic Input Output System. When the device is powered on it checks its physical integrity and various settings before it boots into OS.
It can be flushed and updated for better performance and additional HW features.

PCD - Personal Computing Device, a laptop, but with added extras.

FSL - A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software.

FOSS - Free and Open Source Software

GNU - GPL  - GNU is Not Unix, General Public Licence

FPGA - simply put it is a programmable chip or an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturing.

RISC-V - The Free and Open RISC Instruction Set Architecture RISC-V is a free and open ISA enabling a new era of processor innovation through open standard collaboration.
RISC-V ISA delivers a new level of free, extensible software and hardware freedom on architecture, paving the way for the next 50 years of computing design and innovation. That is what BPCD is all about.

ISA - Instruction Set Architecture

RISC - Reduced Instruction Set Computer

SoC - System-on-Chip. One CPU to rule them all.

AMBA - Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture is a freely-available, open standard for the connection and management of functional blocks in a System-on-Chip.

SoM - System-on-Module. Systems on a module consist of one or more CPUs and GPUs, but also have connectors for external peripherals and are to be easily exchangeable if put in a proper form-factor.
Think of a card that can be plugged in or taken out.

GPIO - General Purpose Input Output

CC - Creative Commons

CC-BY-SA - Creative Commons Attribution–Share-Alike License

ETQ - Excellence Through Quality

OLPC - One Laptop Per Child