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here are a two definitions of what an operating system actually is:

whatis.com's definition of an operating system

foldoc's definition of an operating system

here are a two definitions of what an operating system actually is:

whatis.com's definition of an operating system

foldoc's definition of an operating system

Huh? I don't get what you're saying... They look the same to me. Anyway, here's a URL by which you can find out how to more directly help the FSF.

This new law raises intersting topic for debate. Here, we see that the government has banned the production and distribution of "something" that has, traditionally, been used for malicious and/or damaging purposes. Fairly straightforward.

However, upon closer inspection, we find an inherant flaw - what constitues the now "illegal" viral code? A somewhat sesible definition of a virus, can be found at "whatis.com/virus.htm". The key point in any defintition seems to be : "A virus is a piece of programming code inserted into other programming to cause some unexpected and, for the victim, usually undesirable event.". Again, decent enough.

However, what about "software patches" ? Upgrade packs, the (in)famous Microsoft "Service Packs", and the like? Generally speaking, the user doesn't really have any clue how, or what, these are doing - beyond "fixing broken things". These patches insert their code into the parent program, usually modify the behaviour of the program in some way, and sometimes result unexpected results (option removed, feature added, etc..). That's all the criteria of a virus, right there. Should these be illegal also?

Back the the first point - we see the government trying to protect its people by banning "something" - specifically, in this case, viral code. Why this, and not many of the other "things" that are (primarly) harmful? The obvious selection - firearms. Why not ban guns? Or biological weapons facilities (most industrialized "1st world" companies have them, in some capacity)?

If we'd like to get a little paranoid/"Evil Future Governement" about it, we could go as far as to speculate that the government can (and will) start to ban all manner of things it considers "bad for you". Meat? Cow Milk? Free Speech? Ah, the wonders of Totalitarian government.

By now, many of you might be thinking "man, this isn't the x-files, our government won't go THAT far". Yes, you're probably right.. of course, you don't code viruses...
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| big bad mr. frosty
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whatis.com/framerelay

for the rest of this go to whatis.com

"Bogomips is a measurement provided in the Linux operating system that indicates in a relative way how fast the computer processor runs. The program that provides the measurement is called BogoMips. Written by Linus Torvalds, the main developer of Linux, ..."