no offense taken, i'm just glad you didn't phrase it "dumb idea." that was kind.
ideally i agree with you, but when the only choice is waiting (literally) an hour for a process that never frees up the ram, or the os cuts off something using all the ram, i'll take the latter. a really great compromise was the os said "hey, i'm about to run out of ram. should i just assume that's what you want or do you want me to kill the process before you're unable to?"
as often as it happened, that would be great.
but as someone mentioned, swap helps too. in any case something so very "wouldn't it be nice" was intended only as such. wishful thinking, not a formal rfc. your idea is good, i like the combination of yours and mine the best, and there's probably some way to make it even better than that. just don't think it was very serious, it was only a thought
jason: thanks for mentioning oom, never heard of it. if they take mikshaws idea that could improve it.