On Thu, Aug 31, 2006 at 05:44:00PM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote: > Andy Ruhl wrote: > >On 8/31/06, Thorsten Glaser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >>BSD is about an operating system, not about a kernel. > > > >Bingo. Good point. This point is lost sometimes. > > > >I believe NetBSD has the proper philosophy in regards to the entire OS > >as well. I don't want apache built in, for instance. > > This is a silly definition (imho) which I first heard Stallman use, but > seems to be spreading. > Every book on operating systems that I own, or have read, defines an > operating system as the kernel. Different applications, including even > shells, are not the operating system. > > But that's just my opinion, of course. But most of all, I don't see the > relevance of bringing the discussion down to a hair-splitting of what an > operating system is.
Actually, defining (poorly) the OS to include so much else has been a liability for NetBSD in many ways. It has massively slowed the adoption of new software versions (e.g. GCC), for one. It also contributed to the perception that a better package system and automatic updates were not a serious issue.
