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Article #4401Re: Difference between Unix and Linux?
From: Christopher Browne
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 16:51
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 16:51
35 lines
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3206 bytes
Oops! Jeffrey Siegal <jbs@quiotix.com> was seen spray-painting on a wall: > Kermit Tensmeyer wrote: >> Linux is the OS. > > Actually, Linux is a kernel, not an OS. It's all a question of definitions. There's a (typically common in FSF circles) point of view that the "operating system" can include great gobs of extra stuff, so that TeX and Emacs and such might be considered to be "part of the operating system." That is a legitimate enough perspective, _however_. When you take that perspective, that opens up the definition to make it fuzzy enough that anybody can call pretty much anything "part of the operating system." And at that point, you've made up a definition that allows "whatever answer anybody wants to give" to be valid. It _is_ quite a reasonable thing to characterize "Linux" as being an "Operating system." An init needs to be attached to it, but that's fairly easy to provide. And a great enough diversity of components have been layered on top (various inits, various libcs, various toolsets ...) that tying the "stuff on top" to be forcibly attributed as "GNU" is of ambiguous appropriateness. -- (reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.gultn@" "enworbbc")) http://cbbrowne.com/info/oses.html "What you said you want to do is roughly equivalent to nailing horseshoes to the tires of your Buick." -- danceswithcrows@usa.net on the question "Why can't Linux use Windows Drivers?"
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From: Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin,comp.unix.questions,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Difference between Unix and Linux?
Date: 27 Jun 2002 16:51:55 GMT
Organization: cbbrowne Computing Inc
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