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What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc.?

I'd love a reference (or an explanation if anyone has the time) on what characterizes these different concepts, in what order they start and what role they play. I think I'm fairly certain of kernel and ROM, but the lines are a bit blurry when it comes to the bootloader and the recovery. Basically I have about ten questions related to this, but I think it would be best if there's just some pedagogical article somewhere that lays it all out :)

All the results I've found on Google basically explain it as "when you choose boot into recovery it boots into CWM if that's installed" and that doesn't really help me to understand the purpose of the different parts and how they work.

Thanks in advance!

edit Some questions I feel wasn't answered in the linked thread:

1) The difference between bootloader and recovery

2) CM states that improper ROM flashing can brick a device, how? Shouldn't recovery be left intact?

3) Can you install a custom recovery (CWM) without unlocking bootloader on any device?

4) Is fastboot the same as recovery?

5) What component is "responsible" for the SIM lock? Why doesn't it go away completely if that part is removed?

Thanks in advance for your patience :)

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pzkpfw
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    there was a similar thread http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2885/what-is-the-difference-between-rooting-jailbreak-rom-mod-etc you might take a look – svarog Jun 23 '12 at 18:48
  • I think this is best contained in that other post, if you have any questions remaining I'd comment on the answer and see if we can get more detail in it. – Matthew Read Jun 23 '12 at 19:05
  • Added some extra questions up top – pzkpfw Jun 23 '12 at 19:11
  • I added some more on the bootloader, it should hopefully answer those questions. For (2) specifically, a bad flash can overwrite recovery or the bootloader or wipe out partitioning information that they rely on. (5) The SIM lock is usually a proprietary hardware thing that the firmware just interacts with, so you can't "remove" that. – Matthew Read Jun 23 '12 at 19:23
  • Cool, but I'm still missing a clear distinction between recovery and bootloader (question 3 is related to this). – pzkpfw Jun 23 '12 at 19:44
  • There is no distinction between bootloader and recovery. Fundamentally, there is two partitions - boot and recovery, it is in the boot loader binary code resident on the boot partition (think of DOS's MBR) is checking if the hardware key, volume down is pressed, if it is, it chain loads on to the recovery partition's boot mechanism and invokes Recovery. If no hardware key is pressed, it bypasses recovery and continues normal boot. – t0mm13b Jun 23 '12 at 19:56
  • To complement my comment, https://www.codeaurora.org/2010/03/02/little-kernel-based-android-bootloader/ This is common among Qualcomm chipsets... Samsung does it slightly differently.. – t0mm13b Jun 23 '12 at 19:57
  • So if I understand you correctly, there's no way to have a "locked bootloader" (stock) and at the same time run a custom recovery (for example, CWM). – pzkpfw Jun 23 '12 at 20:08
  • Correct, for the custom recovery to be in place, the locked bootloader must be unlocked which is what I was saying earlier on one of the Q&A's about the Xperia Neo having CWM in a locked bootloader which has me surprised... Well, it must have been unlocked, (http://unlockbootloader.sonymobile.com/) – t0mm13b Jun 23 '12 at 20:13

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