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Re: GPLv3 comedy unfolding -- raya's research on "The Four Freedoms"


From: Alfred M. Szmidt
Subject: Re: GPLv3 comedy unfolding -- raya's research on "The Four Freedoms"
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 23:27:48 +0200 (CEST)

   >    > So you admit that there has been no _fixed_ definition.
   >    > Maybe you are too old to remember those things, but in those
   >    > times, "operating system" and "kernel" was used pretty much
   >    > synonymously in computer science circles.
   >
   >    This is true, but in computer marketing circles the definition
   >    extended far beyond the kernel.  See, for example, what AT&T
   >    included in System III or for that matter what all came on the
   >    BSD tapes.
   >
   > It had nothing to do with "marketting circles", check what came
   > on the LMI CADR, or LAMBDA tapes.  Or what came on RSX-10, or
   > even ITS.

   "came on" most certainly had to do with marketing circles.

You realise that no marketdroids touched ITS, right?

   In academic circles, "operating system" and "operating system
   theory" was very much centered about the concept "arbitration of
   system resources like CPU, memory, file storage, devices".

You agreed that there was no fixed definition, but now you claim that
there was.  Some people refered to everything that made up the system,
some like you, refer to the kernel.

   You'll actually find that while UNIX including its central
   utilities is often informally referred to as "the system", the more
   formal term "operating system", stemming from computer science, is
   commonly reserved to mean the kernel itself.

If it is formal, then there is an semi-agreed definition of the term.
Since you just agreed that there was not, insisting that "operating
system" was reserved for the kernel itself in computing science is
quite stupid.  In your circles it might have been "kernel ==
operating" system", but in others, that was not the case.

Cheers.




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