What exactly is the DOM?

Well having this in mind and :

How would one attach events using other than JavaScript ? If there’s such thing (for example in php DOM ) it will be working only for the duration of the script, which is not very useful.
Isn’t DOM the very essential via which we can manipulate objects and the rest is utilities handled by the programming language used. For example php does not require having events , therefore does have them.
Based on this, DOM should be only the base, the tree and all methods for modifying it.

Couldn’t we, the developers, vote for unifying the BOM so that everything is much more clear and frameworks would be much lighter. Or is it matter of proprietary software.