Windows XP, OSX Mountain Lion, Ubuntu 13.04 are all specific releases, not the new operating systems.
Elementary isn't, too. It is not even a distro until it has clear release and update policies.
Otherwise you'd consider any skinned ISO of any existing OS a new OS, and that's just wrong. "Hello all, I'm making one new OS in my basement every week!"
> a distribution is most simply described as a particular assortment of applications installed on top of a set of libraries married with a version of the kernel, such that its "out-of-the-box" capabilities meet most of the needs of its particular end-user base.
It seems you're just making up random criteria that elementary OS doesn't meet so you can dismiss it for what it is: an operating system.
Elementary isn't, too. It is not even a distro until it has clear release and update policies.
Otherwise you'd consider any skinned ISO of any existing OS a new OS, and that's just wrong. "Hello all, I'm making one new OS in my basement every week!"