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Why does that distinction matter here? Besides, many OSes in the past were more like libraries than active resource managers.
by drb91 8y ago
Why does that distinction matter here? Besides, many OSes in the past were more like libraries than active resource managers.
- naasking 8y agoI don't think they have to be active, but an OS should in principle own hardware resources and merely grant access to other programs by some means. Just importing a library that directly accesses hardware wouldn't qualify as an OS. There has to be some distinction between the subset of all possible programs that qualify as "operating systems", otherwise why have two terms?