Yeah, well, I don't know if I count as rabid this days or not, but I've never said I expected anything like a Microsoft breakup, unless it's something Microsoft sees in its best interests. As to your quote and the article it came from, it makes about as much sense to me as your WSJ article and how antitrust action against Microsoft was going to threaten my right to call Bill a hairball. Not that I would want to do such a thing, Bill's my hero you know.
On the particular issue of "what is an OS", there is one clear dividing line in most modern systems. Processors have a privileged pr system mode which allows excecution of instructions not allowed in normal user/application programs. Most of what us dotty CS types would call the OS proper, as opposed to applications or utilities packaged with the OS, runs in this privileged mode; to manage virtual memory and to do I/O to real devices, you have to be running in that mode. Things can get more complicated than that, with various levels of security, and of course that little distinction falls apart totally in DOS, but DOS wasn't much of an OS in modern terms either. But the particular point of view in the Mercury article was pretty naive too.
Cheers, Dan. |
