Such a wonderful confusion of libertarianism with technology :-) Libertarianism makes sense only for freely acting independent entities (not necessarily "ration

Such a wonderful confusion of libertarianism with technology :-) Libertarianism makes sense only for freely acting independent entities (not necessarily "rational", by the way), meaning there is no objective way to establish an entity more "rightful" and more "reasonable" - hence the policy of no aggression. But in the operating system everything acts according to a command of a designer. Programs run because user has launched them, memory is paged because the designer wanted so and the user freely agrees to trust his judgement. There is no ground whatsoever to compare virtual memory to fiat money. In some systems virtual memory makes a lot of sense even with non-desirable side effects. In some others, it makes sense to have a direct access to the memory. But in both cases the solution is completely determined by the somebody's choice. There are absolutely no "free actors". Even if you design the OS with a policy of "no policy", it's still your particular choice, not a laissez-faire for the "actors". And, of course, Linus Torvalds has nothing to do with your decision to use a particular kernel for your particular use. If the computer belongs to your employer or customer, it's not the Torvalds, but you and your counterpart who decide whether to use the system or not (and how). EDIT: What a fool I am :-) I didn't see the irony in the above comment.