Agree with this, especially with the "it takes quite a bit of care even for simple stuff", but this should not discourage developers to do so. One of the reasons to build this kind of infrastructure is to set proper standards for smart contracts development which are currently missing. As long as we are aware that we need to be careful, and we raise the quality of the code and keep on developing tools to improve development as a whole things should keep on moving forward.

It's an operating system insofar as it's a layer of services on top of the "bare metal" that is the EVM. Through those services it allows the development of complex applications in the same way a normal OS does.

How does that differ from installing a web framework, or an application? That doesn't seem like an operating system to me.

Good question. Both libraries and frameworks (the main difference between the two being the inversion of control) are addenda to your application, aimed at providing more features and building blocks to set up more complex behaviours.

zOS takes this one step further, including not only libraries for SC development, but also aiming at defining interoperability standards, mechanics and economics for having independent contracts interact between them as independent actors (or processes, if you will) on a shared computing space that is the blockchain.

I think the key here in terms of semantics is that zOS is not just an Operating System, but rather an Operating System for the blockchain. And when we go there, we don't have many definitions available, but are rather waiting to be made.

Seems like "framework" or "library" would be better; this isn't exactly a scheduler or resource allocator in the same way an os implies.

↑↑ Check the reply above by spalladino2.

Tezos and zeppelinOS are very different things. zeppelinOS is building an operating system on top of the Ethereum Virtual Machine to provide secure infrastructure for the development of smart contract applications. A technology that is still being developed but used by thousands of developers, and maturing into it's next phase. Tezos is building a new blockchain with a different infrastructure altogether.

Millions of developers are working with Ethereum?

Thousands! Little typo over there. Hopefully soon they will be millions :-)

Exactly. If a higher level of security and robustness of the platform is not achieved we will continue to see hacks like the Parity one over and over again. This is one of the main drivers for building zeppelinOS.

If you are thinking of going deeper into content marketing strategies you might be interested in this post I wrote.

It is a list on all you need to know to write beautiful posts that get read on Medium.

It is basically a compacted list of several different sources (all credited and linked inside the post). I hope you all find it useful!