I didn't make up the terminology. It was already in common use at least thirty years ago when I was actively working in that domain. To simplify, it's basically about whether a missed deadline is considered fatal or recoverable. That difference leads to very different design choices. Perhaps some kinds of video software is hard real-time by that definition, but for sure a lot of it isn't. I'd apologize, but it was never meant to be pejorative in the first place and being on one side of the line is cause for neither pride nor shame. They're just different kinds of systems.
