rumours of plan 9 going commercial

[Dave Mason dmason@plg.uwaterloo.ca]

   Date: Tue, 8 Feb 1994 19:38:02 -0500
   From: Vijay Gill <vijay@gl.umbc.edu>

   > However, I think Rob Pike has said that they are trying
   > to get Plan 9 publicly released.  I assume he means as
   > free software along the lines of awk or sam.  I believe
   > this is the only way Plan 9 will ever have a chance to see
   > the widespread use it deserves, and so I hope very much
   > that this happens.

   Oh god, I think the earth moved for me.

I like the Plan 9 design *A*LOT*.  I have read most of the
documentation (about a year ago).

I am currently running Linux on my laptop, because I refuse to run an
operating system for which I don't have source.  As far as I'm
concerned, I do not have source for Plan 9, because though the
University may have source, I refuse to look at source that may some
day taint me and any operating system code I may produce (c.f. the USL
v.s BSDI lawsuit).  If the plan 9 source was covered by a copyright
like NJ/SML (also from AT&T), I would almost certainly switch (despite
my editor comments below).

   I am drumming up support for plan 9 here, but when I say it
   doesn't run emacs, people lose all interest and the weird thing
   is that after about 2 weeks of running sam, I would hate to go

I use emacs for 3 reasons: customizability, availability on any
platform on which I would consider working, and a shell interface
(under which I run the Unix rc) that I can use *from*the*keyboard* (I
*hate* mice).  I played with the Unix sam for a while, but wasn't too
impressed (the native plan 9 version is probably much nicer).  acme
sounds interesting... if there was a Unix version (for the machines
where I can't change the OS) I'd be willing to give it a serious shot.

../Dave