unix true and false are in the opposite sense for normal Boolean logic, where 0 is usually considered to represent false. I personally consider the false command to return "error = true, thus success = false". I find it makes slightly more sense to think of it like that.
Most shells keep the return value of the last command in the ? variable. The sequence...
false echo $? true echo $?will illustrate stack return value passing.
cLIeNUX false is implemented in C, without libc. It is linked statically with the kernel exit call wrapper from cLIeNUX libsys.a. That's all it is, in fact. For some illustration of the implications of that, do
time false wc /command/falseThe sourcecode of false should be in /source somewhere as an example of libc-less C with libsys. false doesn't even use arc_env.o for argument processing, so with cLIeNUX false you will have to live without --help or --version or any other args.