No surprise, I totally agree that people rarely refer to OS components as merely "software".  I think thumperward has overstated his case.  If you look at WP:NCDAB, you'll notice that one of the examples disambiguates with "set theory"; if his interpretation was correct, why didn't the example disambiguate with "mathematics"?  There is no answer.  It's a judgment call.  I think the example supports picking a term that's actually illuminating of what the thing is, not merely the most generic and completely meaningless term possible.