plan 9 and other operating systems

[Charles M. Hannum mycroft@ai.mit.edu]

   I have one serious comment. Linux is a mess, but A) it works, and
   B) it is totally unencumbered, [...]

I'm not going to holler about the implementation of (and the number of
things that *don't* work in) Linux here.  I'll save that for another
day.

However, I feel compelled to bash on your point B a bit.  Linux is in
fact quite encumbered.  The GPL forces a distributor to either always
give you source with any binaries, or to (essentially) become a
clearing house for very cheap copies of the source for anyone
requesting them.  If you don't believe that, go read the license.
This can be a big hassle for some people, and it's clear that some (of
not most) Linux distributors just violate the GPL and don't worry
about it.

This is not to say that it's more encumbered than, say, Plan 9, which,
from what I've heard, you can't give away at all.

   Would we find ourselves in the same situation as Berkeley --
   without the extensive legal staff of the UC system?

I'm not sure that's a fair comment.  I don't speak for Bell Labs,
obviously, but it's my impression that at least some people there were
very much *not* in favor of the law suit.  USL sort of spun off and
started doing its own thing, and it's not clear that the Labs had any
control over it by that point.