Spring makes the discussion confusing because it refers to "single instances of a class" as "singleton" scope.
What is being debated here is when a class intentionally restricts how many instances of itself can be instantiated. That is the true "Singleton pattern" - a class that combines two concerns, 1) the behavior of the class and 2) the instantiation pattern of the class.
What is being debated here is when a class intentionally restricts how many instances of itself can be instantiated. That is the true "Singleton pattern" - a class that combines two concerns, 1) the behavior of the class and 2) the instantiation pattern of the class.