(true or false) the operating system manages interactions between hardware and software.

-The OS by it self is useless because it requires both the hardware and the software. The OS is like the middleman, where a service is asked form the software, and the os perform the task thorught the hardware. Just like the government, it can not function properly by it self. It requires the higer class and the lower class.

I disagree with the statement, “An operating system performs no useful function by itself. It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work.” An operating system does need to perform some useful functions by itself. For example, the operating system must work with the hardware to “provide appropriate mechanisms to ensure the correct operation of the computer system and to prevent user programs from interfering with the proper operation of the system.” If the operating system merely provided an environment where programs did “useful work”, how will malicious programs be prevented from running? The operating system should prevent malicious programs from running and interfering with the execution of other programs. Because of this, I do not believe that the operating system performs no useful function by itself, and thus is not as similar to the government as the statement says it is.

The authors are attempting a comparison to a human rarity, a benign government which treats all participants equally and enforces a small well-understood consistent set of rules normally followed by the entire population.  Operating systems are responsible for the well-being of resources and processes, mediating disputes and conflicts between processes, termination of errant processes, defense against attack, and so on.  Moreover, governments do perform useful functions - police, hospitals, libraries, etc.  Not to belabor the point, but when things go horribly wrong, are the processes allowed to overthrow the operating system?

I believe that as a whole this statement is false. An operating system does indeed provide an environment, but it does the majority of critical tasks within a computer. Context switching, memory allocation, and being the only source of allowing programs may speak with hardware are all very critical tasks that it performs. A government provides overhead, a form of decision and leadership. So in a sense the operating system can indeed act like a government, giving out resources to what it deems to be critical and important. Still, unlike a government it provides more than just an environment, the operating system itself is a program that without any other program can still perform important critical functions in speaking with the hardware and perform its own seperate tasks.

An operating system certainly performs useful functions by itself.  Nevertheless, a large portion of the operating system’s role is to provide an environment within which other programs can do useful work.   Similarly, governments can perform useful (or harmful) functions by themselves, though their key role is to construct a societal environment within which its inhabitants can live optimally – freely, safely, conveniently, and happily.  Just as "a properly designed operating system… ensures that an incorrect (or malicious) program cannot cause other programs to execute incorrectly,” a government provides a judicial / criminal justice system that ideally creates fairness and protection from harm for its constituents.

Give a critique of the following statement, “An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work”

Critique:

     The above statement gives what I feel to be an easy-to-understand, simple definition of an operating system.  An OS provides the ability to plug in an external input into your computer and it also provides the ability to execute programs.  If no one (user or program) is using it though, it sits with no purpose.  The OS is only useful, when you go to plug in your external mouse and expect it to move across the screen.  To programs, the OS is only useful when they are trying to execute and need to have memory allocated and stored.  The OS is what allows us (users and programs) the ability to do work on our machines.

Give a critique of the following statement, “An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work”

Critique:

     The above statement gives what I feel to be an easy-to-understand, simple definition of an operating system.  An OS provides the ability to plug in an external input into your computer and it also provides the ability to execute programs.  If no one (user or program) is using it though, it sits with no purpose.  The OS is only useful, when you go to plug in your external mouse and expect it to move across the screen.  To programs, the OS is only useful when they are trying to execute and need to have memory allocated and stored.  The OS is what allows us (users and programs) the ability to do work on our machines.

Statement: "An operating system is similar to a government. Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself. It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."

  I have to agree with this statement. A government with no one to govern is completely useless, as is an operating system without any hardware to manage. If the government is poorly designed, then there is the possibility for more crime and chaos. Similarly, if an OS is poorly designed, then hardware may do undesirable things or other software could corrupt the system.

This statement is not totally correct. An operating system does provide environment for other programs, but (at least for nowadays operating system) it also provide many functions such as task scheduling, security control, resource management, exception handling, providing interface between software and hardware, etc. Actually, "provide an environment" itself is a useful function because it provides something which is useful (i.e. environment).

I believe that the statement that an operating system is like the government is inherently incorrect. An operating system does more than provide an environment, it controls all of the other operations and the interactions between hardware and software. One such example is touch screen, this development a way of I/O has been integrated into almost all new smart phones and as such has become part of the operating system. This in itself allows us to use our phones in new ways, and even if the phone was devoid of any other application other than the operating system, it allows us to interact with the hardware. This by definition is a useful operation with no need for other programs and as such it does more than just provide an environment in which other programs can perform their tasks.

I agree with the statement, because OS is really like a government which is responsible for maintaing the correct program execution, providing services for programs, etc. Without OS, nothing can be done, it would be something crazy, everything would go on its own, so nothing useful would relly happen. Also, OS controls what process can do what and what permission does it have. In any government, it is the same system, where the government takes care of maintaing the work to be done, where the work is done by different group of people in the governement. Since a government regulates everything, it would be choas without it, the same as without OS.

An operating system certainly performs useful functions by itself.  Nevertheless, a large portion of the operating system’s role is to provide an environment within which other programs can do useful work.   Similarly, governments can perform useful (or harmful) functions by themselves, though their key role is to construct a societal environment within which its inhabitants can live optimally – freely, safely, conveniently, and happily.  Just as "a properly designed operating system… ensures that an incorrect (or malicious) program cannot cause other programs to execute incorrectly,” a government provides a judicial / criminal justice system that ideally creates fairness and protection from harm for its constituents.

It is true that an operating system provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work. The operating system provides an environment in which there are protocols to be followed and standards to be met. However, an operating system also abstracts away the hardware and provides an easy-to-use API that a developer can use to create the programs that do useful work. Without an operating system, it would be incredibly difficult to write programs that are laid out correctly in memory. Even if we were able to lay out programs in memory, there would almost certainly be security issues such as buffer overflow attacks that could be executed easily. The operating system provides a standard way to access the underlying hardware by providing an API. This is similar to how a government sets up labor laws, currency, and manages the post-office. Without the operating system (or government), the system would undoubtedly crash or become so convoluted that even the simplest task would become a burden on the user.

Critique of Statement:

• "An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." -- OSC, p. 4

I think the above statement is pretty accurate because an operating system just manages the hardware of a system as well as provide the system with an interface where other programs can function and perform tasks. The operating system allows for programs to run and share information amongst each other. Without basic programs, an operating system would have little to no real useful functionality.

This quote close to accurately describes an operation system. An operation system acts as the messenger between the user of a computer and the computer hardware. Its purpose is to provide an efficient and convenient environment where the user can execute programs. But the operating system is useless by itself, as it needs hardware to manage and a user to run it. Just like the government needs people to govern and people to run it. The most apparent similarity is that they both protect against maliciousness, which allows for a safe environment (for the most part). An operating system, just like a government, basically provides an atmosphere in which other programs, or people for a government, can do constructive work. Also, just like an operating system must allocate its resources, make decisions and control input and output requests, a government must do the same but in a different context. Overall, a government and operating system are similar, as they both need to manage and need to be managed by.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."

It is important for an operating system to act like a government in order to protect the well-being of the machine. The operating system should protect and monitor a programs intent. For example, if a program attempts to modify some crucial operating system file(s), then like a government, the operating system should step in and prevent this action by ending the process. This ensures the safety of the machine and proper execution of the operating system.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."

Might have chuckled a bit when I first read it, but it completely makes sense. A lot like a government an OS is responsible for the "fiscal" matters of the machine. Who gets what? When do they get it? What if we don't have it?

Or in the case of a computer, how much memory will be allocated to this process? Interrurpt? Better do this now.

Also its a little morbidly funny to think that when a process becomes ungovernable its time to send SIGKILL and we as humans tend to debate issue.

Makes sense. A lot like a government, an OS is responsible for the "fiscal" matters of the machine. It decides who gets what resources, and when they access which hardware device.

Its morbidly funny to thing that when a process becomes unruly the OS just kills it, where as humans we debate the issue in courts, and may or may not kill it.

I believe this statement is correct as the OS has to communicate with multiple components in order to work.  This incldes the hardware, the applications it can run, and the user.  The hardware gives the OS the tools it needs in order to run the applications that a user wants to use.  A user may set certain things that an OS can do, but for the most part the user does not have much access to most of the OS functions.

The analogy between an operating system and a government seems rather accurate from a broad perspective.  In other words, an OS provides structure, not necessarily functionality.

The second quote seems correct, although I know very little about the interface between hardware and software as of now.

The third quote sounds accurate in a perfect world, but simply not possible in the real world.  As mentioned in class, this is why there will always be good jobs in computer security.

I agree with the statement. You can not necessarily do much with just an operating system. You need applications, networks, etc. in order to achieve something. The operating systems simply provides the environment in which we can run microsoft office, the internet, or play games. The operating system does have many responsibilties, however, it must talk with the hardware and as said in the additional point, it must watch over programs to make sure one doess not corrupt another. And operating system may not do a lot by itself, just like the government, but a computer needs an operating system just like we need the government.

I believe this is a good analogy for an operating system. Its primary purpose is to be a protection system among the hardware and software applications. Standing alone, the operating system will not be useful to a user because it does not provide the necessary programs that the user requests. Instead, it controls how the desired programs of the user interact with the hardware and other programs and keeps them working properly.

I feel as though all of these quotes are connected. They imply that the operating systems is responsible for interfacing with hardware, and programs run on top of this to provide functionality. This means that it communicates with hardware elements such as the networking card, video card, audio card, processor, memory, HDD, etc. It creates and manages processes.

One thing that is key is that on modern operating systems, the OS provided contains the operating system AND system programs. This is a key differentiation. Even though the Windows OS is viewed as anything that comes with the Windows software, the OS works behind the scenes - programs like paint, windows update, notepad, etc. are programs on top of the OS.

An operating system provides plenty of useful function... including managing the hardware and providing a more abstract way for programmers to approach writing software for computers.

Governments perform useful functions by itself. Which is also true of an OS.

What might be other programs to someone might be considered the OS by someone else.

Useful is a strange word. I can not say that many useful things get done on a computer.

We all know that all mistakes in hardware can be fixed with software. The problem

with having good hardware is if the hardware is that good then it is easily hackable

by listening to it.

I agree that an OS should help prevent user stupidity from attacks and malicious programs.. because sometimes its too much to ask for smart user action. I dont agree that an OS does nothing but provide an enviroment because the OS itself is the most necessary piece of the puzzle. All components fit together and work together and without each other theyre useless. The OS should be finely tuned to ensure proper security is in place for failures and user error, as the government is.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." -- OSC, p. 4.

Obviously, there are many assumptions to be made when assessing this statement; for example, what kind of government are you comparing the operating system to? What is the operating system in question? What services do either provide? However, in general, I would say that there are many similarites between operating systems and modern governments. That is, one of the primary functions of an operating system is to ensure security for the processes running within it. In doing so, the operating system protects processes from both external threats as well as from other processes. This function of an operating system is analagous to the duty of a national government to protect the rights of its citizens, both from foreign attacks and from other citizens. One can see a similar relationship between the way a government standardizes trade by supplying currency and the way an operating system manages a file system with standard file types, or between the way a government manages foreign policy and the way an operating system interfaces with a user. However, the question still remains, are these functions inherently USEFUL? This is also where the philosophy and complexity of government clashes with the simplicity of an operating system. That is, it is convenient and easy to provide additional programs with an operating systems software; a built-in calculator, text editor, and things of the sort come at little extra cost and are what I would say give the OS an inherent utility. However, for a government to provide additional services, there is considerably more overhead, as anyone can see from their own experiences. Without such services, a government is not so much useful for its citizens' survival, but more of a neutral entity. Thus, I would say that the above quote is false. In contrast, if a government did provide such services, I would say that it is quite useful (although whether it should or not is up to you) and so I would say that the aforementioned quote is true. So, in essence, I believe that the question is not whether the OS or government provides an environment for other entities to do work in, as that seems obvious, but whether the additional services that they do (or do not) provide are "useful".

I disagree with this statement for a few reasons. I believe that a good operating system should be useful without having to install a plethora of other programs in order to achieve any sort of productive task. Take Windows as an example. The operating system comes supplied with a variety of basic tools to achieve many tasks: Internet Explorer (*shudder*), notepad, calculator, etc. These are all tools that have come to be expected by users when they boot up a computer for the first time. While the best tools for the job may not be contained in the operating system, there should exist most general purpose tools from day 1. I also disagree with the comment about the government not being able to do useful work, but we will save that discussion for another day.

Critique: I like the analogy between an operating system and government from the perspective of security. If programs (companies) are misbehaving, it is the OS’s job to stop that program from affecting the entire system. (Note: Our government fails at the equivalent task all the time) Another way to look at this analogy is through the “laws”. An OS needs rules to determine if programs are misbehaving, similar to government. Basically, in order for a computer, or a government to do “useful” work, a secure environment must be set up.

The OS works as the government in the sense that it manages the system of the country where the country presents the hardware the software.  The operating system looks like government in providing central controlling of the pieces it needs to work. Also, it helps to protect the system from viruses and worms as the government protect its citizens from malicious activities.

I think that an operating system is similar to a government in the form that the operating system is supposed to manage the computers hardware in the same way that a government is supposed to be able to manage a country. They both receive input from the users of the computer or the people in the country. I wouldn't say however that they do perform things independently by itself. If you let an operating system idle it will still be running the computer, without input there are still a large number of behind the scenes proccesess that are automated for a computers operating system. The OS has to manage the hardware and protect it from any intrusions. This is similar to the way that an idle government still ahs to protect the country from any internal or external threats.

I do agree with this statement. Everything I on a computer is because of another application that operates because of the OS. Alone the OS can't do anything. It's like installing windows and just looking at the files that came with it. Eventually you need word, or the internet etc etc.

I do also agree with the other two points. It shouldn't be up to a third party application to protect your computer from malicious software or incompetent people. 

An operating system is only tangentially similar to a government. The task of most governments should simply be to enforce the rule of law and protect the home land. This any basic operating system will do. Ensure that programs don’t step on each other and keep the malicious at bay. An OS from there provides a giant amount of abstractions to hardware interactions to ensure it is easy for programmers to write code to the OS and have it work on multiple systems. A government will often farm out these ‘similar’ tasks to the free market. Things like financial transactions, communication, etc. are all heavily abstracted in an efficient manner by the free market with little to no government intrusion. An OS will have to provide these abstractions otherwise it will be considered incomplete. An efficient method for doing many of these tasks will not evolve. Unless of course the OS is open source, but that is cheating because it will still be wrapped into the package that is called an operating system.

"An operating system is similar to a government. Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself. It simply provides an environment within other programs can do useful work."

I agree with the statement above. In my opinion, an operating system is a software that allow the communication between users and the hardwares. And OS can be the environment that organizes many different kind of softwares and relate them to the proper hardware that suppose to be.

Give a critique of the following statement, "An operating system is similar to a government. Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself. It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." -- OSC, p. 4

I agree with this statement in the sense that it is the OS's job to create a secure place for processes to run as it's the governments job to protect people. If there is a rogue program, it is the OS's job to kill that program before it can cause damage to other processes just like how It's also the governments job to prevent crime and lock up criminals. Just like the OS sets up a safe environment for a program to execute, the government sets up a safe world for people to live in.

I would somewhat agree with the statement that an OS is like a government. On its own, neither a government nor an OS is useful for much of anything. A government must have people to govern or else there is no point to having the government in the first place. Similarly, an OS must have programs to manage to make productive use of the computer hardware. In reference to the third point, that a good OS should prevent incorrect or malicious programs from interfering with other programs, I would say that a government and an OS are very similar in this respect. A primary duty of government is to protect the people it governs and a major task of an OS is to manage programs well so that they don't cause each other to incorrectly execute. However, I would say that the two may differ in the amount of control they have over what they manage. Ultimately, an OS has complete control over the computer's resources and the programs that are running while the amount of control that a government has over its people and resources varies depending on its political ideology.

To say an operating system (or government) performs no useful function by itself is incorrect. The primary goal of the operating system is to provide a solid foundation for a user to perform actions they desire. Without this foundation, the user could still perform said desirable action, but it would be extremely impractical. For instance, if someone wanted to send an email, without an operating system this becomes much more time consuming and difficult. To say that the abstraction and functionality an operating system provides is useless implies that everything the operating system provides is trivial, which is hardly the case.

I don't like the statement because the OS performs plenty of useful functions by itself. It manages memory, schedules threads, deals with hardware, etc.  Furthermore, the analogy doesn't hold, because without a government there can still be people (albeit society as a whole wouldn't be organized), whereas without an OS there can't truly be programs, just assembly code.

I agree with the statement that an OS is similar to gov't. Without useful functioning programs to run on a computer, the OS and the machine itself would not be useful either; similar to a gov't without people to govern. I actually think there are flaws with the second excerpt out of the textbook. I agree that the computer hardware must provide appropriate mechanisms to ensure the correct operation of a computer system. But I think the OS would be more responsible in ensuring that user programs don't interfere with proper system operation because there a lot of careless programmers out there. Also, the programmers that write the software should keep in mind the proper operation of their program within an OS environment. This includes ensuring that all aspects of a program are safe and functional within certain operating systems. I completely agree with the final quote. An OS should have safety features built in that do protect the proper operation of of other programs. This is part of the resource management obligation that a good OS should implement.

The problem with the statement "An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." is that the government does not have exclusive control over the low-level resources which society is based upon. Perhaps if we all lived in seperate virtual realities, the government of which determined whether or not particular instantiations of these realities should or should not update actual reality, a more compelling parallel could be made.

While this statement was probably very accurate when operating systems were being developed, I find that it is becoming outdated. Operating systems are becoming more and more complex and handling more capability. They no longer serve as just an intermediate communication between processes and the hardware and now serve much more complex functions. Most operating systems have their own built in programs now which include apps. and widgets, security, and much more. This distinction will continue to grow as operating systems continue to become more advanced.

I think it is correct.

The OS is like a government. The main task for him is to use and control the country which are like hardware. The government is in charge of all the terrains, water, rivers and resources belong to the country. All these resources in my opinion are like hardware. They can do nothing without a government. The government also needs to think of some appropriate method to use the resources, which means that the OS must be compatible to the hardware. The OS would not exist if there is no hardware behind.

On the other hand, the software are like the people in the country. They are the one who actually using the country resources. But they are under the control of government. They have no direct access to the country’s environment. Because if they do without being admonished of government, then they will do whatever they want and mess up with the earth. So the software access the hardware through the OS and it is also under supervised by the OS. If the people have some problem, let’s say, a rebellion or a war, then the government need to stop it right away like force shutting down the software.

I think it is correct.

The OS is like a government. The main task for him is to use and control the country which are like hardware. The government is in charge of all the terrains, water, rivers and resources belong to the country. All these resources in my opinion are like hardware. They can do nothing without a government. The government also needs to think of some appropriate method to use the resources, which means that the OS must be compatible to the hardware. The OS would not exist if there is no hardware behind.

On the other hand, the software are like the people in the country. They are the one who actually using the country resources. But they are under the control of government. They have no direct access to the country’s environment. Because if they do without being admonished of government, then they will do whatever they want and mess up with the earth. So the software access the hardware through the OS and it is also under supervised by the OS. If the people have some problem, let’s say, a rebellion or a war, then the government need to stop it right away like force shutting down the software.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."

 I think that this statement is pretty accurate. However, as the OS provides an environment in which other programs work, it IS providing a useful function by itself. It just wouldn't be utilized very much without other programs.

3. Give a critique of the following statement,

• 
  "An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." -- OSC, p. 4.
  

By my definition of an operating system -- a software platform used to run programs -- it is very much like a government. A government without people would be useless, because there would be nothing to govern. An OS without programs would be useless, because likewise, there would be nothing to run. There are some parties that believe that a government should be more involved in what people can and can’t do, moving towards a socialist or even fascist state. Similarly, other groups feel as though a government should allow people to make their own decisions and take their own risks. Various OSes mandate different amounts of control over programs that run on it.

Consider these additional points,

• 
  "An operating system is software that manages the computer hardware.  The hardware must provide appropriate mechanisms to ensure the correct operation of the computer system and to prevent user programs from interfering with the proper operation of the system." -- OSC, p. 1.
  

This is also very valid. Operating systems are a layer between programs and hardware just like how scope defines a layer between classes in Java and C++ such that one class cannot access private data directly in other classes. This barrier allows the lower layer to choose what are appropriate operations that the outsider program can perform on the it. Being able to control what programs can do to hardware through abstraction allows OSes to decide what is safe for the program to do.

• 
  "A properly designed operating system must ensure that an incorrect (or malicious) program cannot cause other programs to execute incorrectly." -- OSC, p. 21.
  

This is a difficult statement to agree with, because as much as an operating system can attempt to prevent malicious software from interfering with other programs, it can only ensure this through preventing known cases. With malicious software constantly evolving, operating systems need to remain up to date to combat new forms of attacks, which is always an uphill battle. It is reasonable to expect an operating system to be written in a fashion that does not provide blatant security exploits and for developers to continue updating it to prevent new attacks, but to expect it to ensure safety is not. There will always be something developers miss that can cause an issue with the system.

I strongly agree with the statement below.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  

It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."

An well-designed operating system would provide a good environment within which other programs can do userful work

while poorly-designed operating system would provide poor environment so the programs cannot function properly.

Same thing applies to a government; if the government consists a group of gentle and knowledgeable members,

it would provide a good environment so that it can enact a great laws.

This statement is true to its entirety.  The operating system was originally built as a facilitator to a paid employee, and now a days it serves a similar purpose as to do things for processes and the user.  Alone, it doesn’t serve any useful function except maybe to update itself and the hardware?  It acts as the middleman between processes and the hardware.

I disagree with the statement. It is true that the operating system is useless without programs but it still runs. A government would not be able to run without people to tax and govern. An operating system can still function and wait for programs to use it without even needing any resources from the programs unlike a government which would collapse if it had not people to tax.

I agree with the statement that an operating system is similar to a government, because one of the operating system's main functions is to manage programs in order to have a successful running computer system. This is similar to a government managing rules and the people to have a successful society. The programs are what makes the computer system, and the operating system keeps them in check and protects them.

The statement that an operating system is like a government does have some merit.  The OS is an environment that allows other programs to execute safely and easily, but I feel that to say it has no useful functions by itself is a bit harsh.  The OS allows us to see what we are working on and gives us an interface between that hardware and software.  Even if no program is being run on the system, that fact that the OS is there and available for one to be easily run is quite a feat.  To say that this is not a useful function is fairly cynical.

     I think that I agree with the second point much more than the first.  The OS is the program that allows us to take advantage of the hardware without having to know exactly what is going on or even how it works.  The OS however does not always have to stop the users programs from interfering with the hardware, although unless this is the intent of the user that may be ideal.  Some users may find it useful to change the proper operation of the system, and that is how new and innovative technologies are developed.

     The third sentiment I agree with to the point of the last one, which is to say that I think the OS should have failsafe's that stop others from maliciously harming the system.  This should not however, stop the owner of the system from testing its bounds and finding new ways in which to utilize the hardware with new software.

An operating system is like a government in that much us expected of it and not all is achieved.
The reason for thie depends on the issue and can be anything from design incompetence to overly ambitious expectations

As far as it goes, I feel as though the statement is rather correct.  The government defiantely does exist to provide a safe environment for citizens and  buisnesses to exist in, just like the operating system does for programs and applications running on the system.  It manages lots of data of its users(people) and provides essential services to them, just like the operating system.  Technically, the government even provides abstractions; you do not need to know how the government handles social security in order to have a social security card, for example.  

Technically the comparison breaks down because the government does do useful services on its own; it would be more applicable to comapre the military and other government security departments to the likes of anti-virus programs, which are not technically in the realm of the OS comparison.

I agree with the statement.  Similarly, if an operating system is a head coach of a sports team, without players it is worthless.  The coach cannot win games without players.  Also, if the coach is not good, the team will suffer.  Similarly if a government is not clean a concise, there is money wasted and citizens suffer.  Players on the team and citizens in the country represent processes.  As useful as they might be, they cannot be used to the fullest potential if the operating system is not good.

The OS basically is the environment that provides space to other programs to work efficiently. But it also manages them. So I don't agree with that it doesn't do any useful function. Its function is to manage the resources and assign them to programs, but also to check if programs is trustable and doesn't do any harm. I think that it is responable and very important part.

An OS is much like a government, it regulates how things work. It provides a basis on which to communicate and standards that will be set. Hardware is like the buildings within the states of the government. They provide the physical means to perform under the regulation of the OS/government. Should a building do something the government doesn't like, it has the power to repurpose the tasks in the building. As such, the OS can shutdown a process that is running maliciously or in some way damaging to other processes.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."
There are many similarities between an OS and a government: city planners and file management, police departments and antivirus software (see: Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows or a firewall on any OS), the IRS and memory management (making sure there’s enough memory/money for the system to continue operating), the post office and networking, etc.

The operating system also performs functions that directly support program use such as the system clock. The hardware can keep track of time, but the OS helps keep the system synced with time servers such as time.nist.gov so that programs can have access to accurate time stamps. The operating system also helps the programs run more efficiently with things such as multithreading or interprocess communication. So it definitely does provide an environment where other programs can do useful work, but there’s at least one instance (time tracking) in which an operating system provides a useful function on its own.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." -- OSC, p. 4.

  Answer: I cannot completely agree with that. First, government depends on people’s taxes - if nobody works, government doesn’t get the money and it cannot operate. OS doesn’t depend on programs, without programs it is just useless, but still it can work. Yes, government and OS are similar in the sense they provide an environment for people and programs, correspondingly.

"An operating system is software that manages the computer hardware.  The hardware must provide appropriate mechanisms to ensure the correct operation of the computer system and to prevent user programs from interfering with the proper operation of the system." -- OSC, p. 1.

Answer: OS should also control running software, not just the computer hardware.

  "A properly designed operating system must ensure that an incorrect (or malicious) program cannot cause other programs to execute incorrectly." -- OSC, p. 21.

Answer: I think that OS should be able to detect malicious programs and don’t execute them at all.

Although the statement makes a rather good analogy, I do not think it is entirely correct. The government provides a set of guidelines and an info structure for everyone to use, but it is not required in order for people to function on their own. In order for a program to do anything it must go through the OS. The OS has direct interaction with every program that is run. Whereas a government only needs to directly intervene when something rather out of the ordinary happens.

The statement is a bit too vague. An operating system is more like a papal dictatorship. The Operating system orchestrates and facilitates an environment in which 3rd party applications can run, at the discretion of some higher power (the user).

-The OS by it self is useless because it requires both the hardware and the software. The OS is like the middleman, where a service is asked form the software, and the os perform the task thorught the hardware. Just like the government, it can not function properly by it self. It requires the higer class and the lower class.

The suggestion that there is a correspondence between the concept of an operating system and a government is well founded. Before any sort of government or communal human society was in place, even the most basic resources such as food and shelter becomes a free-for-all for the population, which can be thought of as the "processes". When many concurrent processes are trying to use the same hardware, or "land", misuse will often occur. An operating system pools all resources, similarly to how the government collects taxes, in order to provide a managed environment in which all processes are given a basic set of rights and privileges to such resources. Some processes are given more "welfare", or priority, than others. The operating system is also policing how each process uses the shared resources. Suppose a program is requesting memory, if it would be detrimental to other processes to fulfill such a request, the process is either warned or punished by being terminated.

I would agree that an operating system is indeed similar to a government, but don’t believe that an operating system serves no purpose by itself. While applications do indeed live inside the OS and follow its rules, the Operating System also controls hardware components and seeks to have quick input/output communication between the user and the computer.

I disagree with the statement, “An operating system performs no useful function by itself. It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work.” An operating system does need to perform some useful functions by itself. For example, the operating system must work with the hardware to “provide appropriate mechanisms to ensure the correct operation of the computer system and to prevent user programs from interfering with the proper operation of the system.” If the operating system merely provided an environment where programs did “useful work”, how will malicious programs be prevented from running? The operating system should prevent malicious programs from running and interfering with the execution of other programs. Because of this, I do not believe that the operating system performs no useful function by itself, and thus is not as similar to the government as the statement says it is.

For an environment to be useless oter than to support other programs, it would have to be pointless. An operating system is not pointless because it serves many other functions than to run other programs. The operating system itself is a program. To say it doesn't have a use is incorrect. Things such as the filesystem serve a vital function, organizing and storing files. That is part of the operating system.

I don't think that the statement: "It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work," gives enough credit to everything the OS does for the system. Sure, it does provide an environment for programs to do work, but I don't feel like everything it does, is to provide such an environment.

In regards to the statement saying that the hardware provides mechanisms to ensure correct operation and to prevent programs from interfering with the proper operation of the system, I think that is partly true. I think that the hardware does provide some mechanisms to do that, but I also feel that the OS does more to ensure correct operation and prevent programs from interfering with the system. 

I think that the last statement is true. A properly designed OS should ensure that an incorrect program doesn't cause other programs to execute incorrectly. 

The statement is very interesting and I agree with it.  An operating system does not do all the functions that a user wants in an operating system.  Rather, it provides the user a chance to install and download what they want on the operating system with it being able to support all programs wanted.  It needs programs on it to perform the useful functions that the user may want or need.  Given the computer hardware, the operating system is able to perform the functions possible that are needed.  For example, if a laptop did not provide a keyboard, it may be much harder to type what is wanted.  The computer hardware does not perform the functions directly, but rather it allows the software to be able to work and the user is able to see what is performing through the hardware.

The operating system is the one of the closest layers to the hardware of the system. To say it is useless other than to run other programs is false. The operating system is a program. This program contains many vital functions, other than to run other programs. For example, the it provides a working filesystem to store and organize files. To say that is not useful is completely false.

There is some truth to the statement, because providing an environment in which other programs run is one of the central purposes of an operating system. However, the claim that "Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself. It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work." creates some issues. This statement makes sense if it means that the operating system has no purpose without programs to run within it, in the same way that a government has no purpose without people to govern over. Additionally, the government ensures the safety of the system and its people from other citizens and external threats. The operating system performs a similar task as it ensures the safety of the system from external and internal malicious (or ignorant) attacks. However, when the statement is interpreted with a different emphasis, as "the operating system simply provides an environment for other programs", the statemnt becomes false, as the operating system performs many tasks in addition to being an environment, including the just-mentioned security maintenance.

An operating system does perform useful functions by itself and not only to provide an environment for other programs to do useful work. Take scheduler as an example, an operating system without scheduler still can provide an environment for user programs which can do useful work. But with scheduler, the operating system might perform better.

The statement is very interesting and I agree with it.  An operating system does not do all the functions that a user wants in an operating system.  Rather, it provides the user a chance to install and download what they want on the operating system with it being able to support all programs wanted.  It needs programs on it to perform the useful functions that the user may want or need.  Given the computer hardware, the operating system is able to perform the functions possible that are needed.  For example, if a laptop did not provide a keyboard, it may be much harder to type what is wanted.  The computer hardware does not perform the functions directly, but rather it allows the software to be able to work and the user is able to see what is performing through the hardware.

Like any government it is possible to corrupt, manipulate and overthrow it

The statement is very descriptive of what an operating system is. However, the computer science community is not consistent in its definition of an OS. Some experts define it such that the operating system itself includes a set of very useful programs, which go beyond providing the environment for user programs to run. For example, a compiler is commonly considered to be a part of the operating system. However, it acts as a factory of applications not a government. Other examples can be used too. This renders the statement useful to the non-engineering community, but not for the technical community that is concerned with the details.

I mostly agree with that point. With os, people can use the computer more conveniently and efficiently.

I disagree with the point that "A properly designed operating system must ensure that an incorrect (or malicious) program cannot cause other programs to execute incorrectly." because operating system is designed to do its best to prevent malicious program but not mean that it definitely can.

"An operating system is similar to a government.  Like a government, it performs no useful function by itself.  It simply provides an environment within which other programs can do useful work."

 I agree with the above statement.

In an ideal world, there are laws and regulations placed in such a way that no crime is possible and in the same way, an ideal operating system should be impenetrable by itself without the use of anti virus and such applications. They are similar in this respect.

Just like the government is useless without any residents in the region, the operating system is useless without any programs running on it.

The metaphor does work fairly well, with the operating system in a sense governing the programs and processes running on it. There would be no need for an operating system, as with a government, without anything to govern; however, I can't find an extension of the metaphor to incorporate the hardware the operating system manages.

All rights possessed by a process derive from the OS.  After several thousand years, we are still arguing from where the rights of a person derive.

Does the operating system manages interactions between hardware and software?

What controls the interaction between a program and a computer's hardware?

Is an operating system a program that manages the complete operation of your computer or mobile device and lets you interact with it?

What is the main purpose of an operating system?