I believe these are the definitions used in software engineering. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. A "monolithic" system is a system that cannot be fac

I believe these are the definitions used in software engineering. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. A "monolithic" system is a system that cannot be factored into stand-alone components. That is, there is a high degree of logical coupling between its components that make them difficult or impossible to use independently. A "modular" system is a system built of multiple logically-distinct components. Note that this descriptor says nothing about their degree of coupling. Examples: * Linux, the X.org server, and systemd are both modular and monolithic. * Coreutils is modular but not monolithic. * The "ls" program is monolithic and not modular. Note that under these definitions, "modular" is necessary but not sufficient for "not monolithic". From the way he talks about it, however, Lennart seems to believe that "modular" means "not monolithic".