Linux

John Kawakami johnk at cyberjava.com
Thu Feb 25 03:26:27 PST 1999


At 01:50 PM 2/24/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Doyle Saylor wrote:
>> ...The operating system of computing ought to be based upon the
>> public interest.
>
>Umm ... how should a nationalized operating-system provider determine what
kind
>of operating system is in the public interest?

There's already a standard: POSIX.

The thing with OSs is, like any technology, one size does not fit all. Since it's not a real big deal which OS you use, as long as you can intercommunicate with others, I'd think that a government issued OS would be pretty pointless.

If there's anything to nationalize, it's something like Java. It operates only a portion of a computer, but it's a portion that is very generalized. OSs are not very all-purpose (though the vendors say they are), while machine neutral execution tools like Java are more all-purpose.

John Kawakami johnk at cyberjava.com http://www.riceball.com/ethnoveg - the ethnic studies + vegetarianism list



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