Software remastering

Remastering (the term is taken from the audio production process) is the process of customizing a software distribution for personal or "off-label" usage (and often distribution, depending on the legalities involved). It is particularly associated with the Linux distribution world (most Linux distributions have been started by remastering (most notably Slackware from SLS Linux and Yellow Dog Linux, Mandriva, and TurboLinux from Red Hat Linux). The term was popularized by Klaus Knopper, creator of the Knoppix Live Distro, which has traditionally encouraged its users to hack the distribution in this manner to suit their needs; appropriately, Knoppix itself is a remaster of Debian.

Such activity has also been done, though not under this name, to many games, especially those designed for user expansion; some games, in fact, most notably Counter-Strike, have been created in this manner and gone on to be marketed in their own right as commercial products.

ee also

*List of remastering software