I see you are fond of quoting science fiction.
A quick glance through Andrew Tanenbaum's _Modern Operating Systems_
finds an operating system defined as 1) a virtual machine that is
easier to program then the underlying hardware and 2) a resource
manager. A likewise look in H.M. Deitel's _Operating Systems_ defines
an modern operating system as software, primarily resource managment,
that makes hardware useable. He also suggests that the best definition
of past operating systems as software that controls the hardware.
We are Linux users.
Christopher