comp.os.plan9

comp.os.plan9

[forsyth]

>>Now that we have the newsgroup, what will happen to the
>>9fans mailing list?
i hope it stays in some form for a bit (perhaps with a one way gateway from the
news group).  my news feed has only got one article from comp.os.plan9
and i have to cross the atlantic to see the others.
of course, since i can do that virtually, i suppose it's not a big problem.

comp.os.plan9

[Steven]

> It looks like comp.os.plan9 is now operational.
> 
> Now that we have the newsgroup, what will happen to the
> 9fans mailing list?

I hope it will continue to be gatewayed to comp.os.plan9.  We don't have
Usenet here (yet), and I'd hate to miss anything.  This list (modulo my
contributions) has the highest signal/noise ratio of any list I subscribe to.
Thanks, everybody.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Steven Plite  <splite@wdni.com>       Open Systems Eng. & Support, Weyerhaeuser
    "This is the roller coaster of endless and violent vomit."	-- Jason Fox

comp.os.plan9

[Scott]

The plan was to bidirectionally gateway this list to the newsgroup.
The semester just started here, so the lab staff is deluged; once
things settle down I expect they'll install the gateway.

comp.os.plan9

[Kiran]

> It looks like comp.os.plan9 is now operational.
>
> Now that we have the newsgroup, what will happen to the
> 9fans mailing list?
>

i thought that the list would be bi-directionally gatewayed to the
newsgroup? or else, what happens to 'dem who have no access to Usenet?

comp.os.plan9

[dhog]

It looks like comp.os.plan9 is now operational.

Now that we have the newsgroup, what will happen to the
9fans mailing list?

comp.os.plan9

[Jim]

It looks like the voting address is working again.  Voting on the
newsgroup ends tomorrow;  you can get a copy of the Call For Votes, which
contains the voting instructions, by sending email to the mailbot at
plan9-cfv@sub-rosa.com. 

Remember it takes a supermajority for a newsgroup proposal to pass, and if
the proposal fails it will be six months before it can be voted on again. 
This is the one (and only) chance for a mainstream Usenet Plan 9 newsgroup
in 1995. 

comp.os.plan9

[Hans-Peter]

all sounds fine to me.

-hp

comp.os.plan9

[Christopher.Vance]

Jim Davis <jdavis@cs.arizona.edu> wrote:
|  Do we have consensus on the newsgroup?
|  
|  - name: comp.os.plan9

Yes.  It there's enough traffic, it can be split later.

|  - moderated

Not sure.  But either way I'd vote yes.  If the group is split later, 
there could be a mixture of mod and non-mod groups.

|  - bidirectionally gatewayed with this mailing list.

Yes, for people unable or unwilling to use news.

-- Christopher

comp.os.plan9

[Scott]

| Please keep in mind that especially the gateway is
| important for some poor individuals like me, 

The psuvax1 Mail and News Task Force (aka Felix Lee) assures me that
the gateway is go for liftoff.

comp.os.plan9

[Gregg]

> 
> What's about a shareware binary-only or stripped-down distribution? 
> 
> I think one of the reasons for the famous success of Linux was that you
> could get it on nearly EVERY ftp server in the world. It is important
> to give people the chance to try plan9 before they decide to buy it.

Well, not presuming to speak for "the Plan 9 Guys \(rg", I don't expect
that plan 9 is being targeted as a competitor to Linux, of all things.

However, I recall from the winter usenix bof that an ftpable binary release
was mentioned as a possibility.

Gregg Siegfried
grs@claircom.com

comp.os.plan9

[Geoff]

Perhaps rob is right about moderation:

>From: aarnett@aol.com (AArnett)
>Newsgroups: comp.os.research
>Subject: Planet 9
[headers elided]
>
>Does anyone have anything on Ritchies new OS by the above name or is it
>just a red herring?

I still have reservations about whether these kinds of clueless or weird
posts are going to be so common as to need a moderator (normally I skip
them less than a second, usually based on the subject line), but if someone
is willing to spend the time, more power to them.

Geoff.

comp.os.plan9

[Harald]

> The distribution will be in source form but not redistributable.
> Your friends should pay to buy their own copy.  Hell, it's a bargain
> as it is.
> 

What's about a shareware binary-only or stripped-down distribution? 

I think one of the reasons for the famous success of Linux was that you
could get it on nearly EVERY ftp server in the world. It is important
to give people the chance to try plan9 before they decide to buy it.


Harri
-- 
Harald Dunkel | dunkel@Synopsys.COM  |  The more laws and order are made 
Synopsys GmbH | Kaiserstr. 100       |  prominent, the more thieves and
52134 Herzogenrath, Germany          |  robbers there will be.
+49 2407 9558 (fax? 44: 0)           |                -- Lao Tsu

comp.os.plan9

[Martin]

> 
> Do we have consensus on the newsgroup?
> 
> - name: comp.os.plan9
> - moderated
> - bidirectionally gatewayed with this mailing list.

Sounds OK for me.  Please keep in mind that especially the gateway is
important for some poor individuals like me, as my Usenet access is
limited to mail.  I'm not connected to the news (nor to WWW).  This all
may change some day, but until then a separate newsgroup would cut me
off from the discussion.

comp.os.plan9

[rob]

The distribution will be in source form but not redistributable.
Your friends should pay to buy their own copy.  Hell, it's a bargain
as it is.

There are terms to let an organization share one copy, but I
don't know the exact license.  When I know the details, I'll make
them known, so please be patient.

-rob

comp.os.plan9

[rob]

all sounds fine to me.

comp.os.plan9

[Bill]

> (If moderation is a hangup then that can be hashed out in the RFD phase,
> but I'm pretty sure the odds of the developers participating will be
> better if it's moderated.  And the moderation 'style' could consist of
> just weeding out the bozo posts and chain letters.)
> 
> CHARTER
> 
> comp.os.plan9 is a moderated newsgroup for discussion of the Plan 9
> operating system from Bell Labs.  It's a forum to ask questions and share
> information about installing, administering, and using Plan 9 systems. 
> The newsgroup will be bidirectionally gatewayed with the Plan 9 mailing
> list. 
> 
> RATIONALE
> 
> Plan 9 is a computing system developed at the Computing Science Research
> Center of AT&T Bell Laboratories.  First released in 1990, Plan 9 contains
> many innovative ideas but is robust enough for production use.  There is
> an active Plan 9 mailing list with several hundred readers. 
> 
> Past releases of Plan 9 could only be licensed by universities. The next
> release will be available to anyone, and run on a wide range of PCs.  This
> will make running Plan 9 an option for many Usenet readers. 
> 
> A Plan 9 newsgroup would let Plan 9 users help each other, and let anyone
> interested in current operating system practice learn about Plan 9. 

Sounds great.  Thought you might know.... Will plan-9 once released be
a commercial os?  I.e. pay per license?   Or is it distributable?  I.e.
you pay for the cd-rom then can let your friends install it?

I'm uncertain if AT&T is trying to make money from plan-9 or just covering
distribution costs.

If you don't know I can wait.


-- 
Bill Broadley		Broadley@math.ucdavis.edu	    UCD Math Sys-Admin
Linux is great.		http://ucdmath.ucdavis.edu/~broadley            PGP-ok

comp.os.plan9

[Jim]

Do we have consensus on the newsgroup?

- name: comp.os.plan9
- moderated
- bidirectionally gatewayed with this mailing list.

With the voting proposal backlog and the time needed for the RFD and
voting, this should get going soon.  I'll defer to Geoff Langdale if he'd
like to try again; otherwise I'd suggest the following charter and
rationale for a comp.os.plan9 RFD, and volunteer to take it up with the
Usenet powers-that-be.  Someone needs to volunteer to moderate; someone
else volunteering as backup moderator would be a good thing. And I assume
the list owner needs to agree to the gatewaying! 

(If moderation is a hangup then that can be hashed out in the RFD phase,
but I'm pretty sure the odds of the developers participating will be
better if it's moderated.  And the moderation 'style' could consist of
just weeding out the bozo posts and chain letters.)

CHARTER

comp.os.plan9 is a moderated newsgroup for discussion of the Plan 9
operating system from Bell Labs.  It's a forum to ask questions and share
information about installing, administering, and using Plan 9 systems. 
The newsgroup will be bidirectionally gatewayed with the Plan 9 mailing
list. 

RATIONALE

Plan 9 is a computing system developed at the Computing Science Research
Center of AT&T Bell Laboratories.  First released in 1990, Plan 9 contains
many innovative ideas but is robust enough for production use.  There is
an active Plan 9 mailing list with several hundred readers. 

Past releases of Plan 9 could only be licensed by universities. The next
release will be available to anyone, and run on a wide range of PCs.  This
will make running Plan 9 an option for many Usenet readers. 

A Plan 9 newsgroup would let Plan 9 users help each other, and let anyone
interested in current operating system practice learn about Plan 9. 

comp.os.plan9

[Dirk]

On Mar 31,  3:29am, Heiko Wengler wrote:
> Subject: [CLUE-PICKUP:617] ET vs World this sunday at 1pm EST
> Hi.
>
> ET wants to face the world this sunday at 1pm EST/8pm CET
> on
>
> -h fisher.psy.vu.nl -p 4577 ( 5000 obs)
>
> CU on sunday!
>
> 	Heiko
> 	Captain ET
>
> PS: Please be ontime.
>-- End of excerpt from Heiko Wengler

Hi.

Wie war bitte die Raumnummer von future? Und habt ihr da telefon?

Dirk

comp.os.plan9

[Geoff]

An alt group is probably not a good idea. Aside from the cruddy
distribution of alt, do we really want to saddle ourselves with
a such a low-rent title as alt.os.plan9? (alongside alt.os.multics
and alt.os.nachos, as it happens)

Over a year ago, I ran a proposal for comp.os.plan9 up the flagpole.
Not very many people saluted. Remember, in order to get comp.os.plan9
newgrouped we need 100 more YES votes than NO votes and a 2/3rds majority.
Taking into account the small group of troglodytes who vote NO to every
newsgroup proposal, that amounts to 110-120 YES votes. I never took the
proposal for comp.os.plan9 beyond the discussion phase, as at the time it
was obvious that we weren't going to get the required number of votes.
I decided that it was probably better to put off the proposal until a
general release of Plan 9, rather than get defeated from lack of interest.

Possibly, it's time to try again. The discussion of the newsgroup should
probably follow an announcement of the imminent availability of the general
release, just to drum up interest (half of the messages that I got after my
original proposal were people asking how they could get Plan 9). There's
certainly a need for a FAQ, but no need whatsoever for a moderator. If it
comes to that, we can work out comp.os.plan9.announce later (not to
mention comp.os.plan9.advocacy for the religious flamewars).

Geoff.

comp.os.plan9

[Scott]

Geoff writes:

> Alas, that was my call; I've put the RFD for comp.os.plan9
> out a couple of times. The first time I couldn't really
> follow it up, as thesis work intervened. Both times the
> response didn't justify proceeding to a vote. I had a number
> of enthusiatic responses via e-mail - but you need 100 more
> YES votes than NO votes, and there's a hard core of people who
> vote NO to everything that they aren't personally interested.

I'd like to suggest that, the next time you put out an RFD,
you proselytize a little more aggressively.  I'm *very* interested
in comp.os.plan9, and have been quite surprised that there isn't
one already.  I'd vote yes (early and often, being from Chicago),
but I've never seen the RFD.  Perhaps you could put out the RFD
to a wider audience, certainly including this mailing list, and
maybe including comp.os.linux.misc, comp.sys.notebook, etc.
I'd think that many of the people who are interested in Linux
(c'mon now, running a more or less full-blown UNIX on something
that you can carry around in your backpack is hardly completely
devoid of interest...) would be interested in Plan 9 as well, ne?

I've saved an 80Mb partition to load Plan 9 onto on my notebook...
but haven't had the time to figure out what to do to get it up
and running...  Somehow having a little box that weighs 5lb and
that can boot and run Linux, MSDOS (if you must) *and* Plan 9
appeals greatly to my geekly leanings. :-)
_________________________________________________________________
 Scott Deerwester            |   The Hong Kong University of
 Internet: scott@cs.ust.hk   |     Science and Technology
 Phone:    (852) 358-6985    |  Department of Computer Science
-----------------------------------------------------------------

comp.os.plan9

[Vijay]

On Sun, 6 Feb 1994 geoff@plan9.cs.su.oz.au wrote:

> we'll probably have trouble _not_ getting a comp.os.plan9 - look
> at the interest in that astoundingly mediocre and uninteresting
> Linux thing.

This brings up a point.  Editors on plan9.  Sam is very nice, no doubt,
I've built it on our systems and installed it and now use it exclusively
when at school, but not having access to a SLIP line, can't really use sam
from home except with sam -d, which is not as convenient as using vi or
even, dare I say it, emacs.  What I hope someone can help with, is running
plan9 over a modem without slip, as the TERM program does for linux,
allowing a dialout to an annex box from a home linux box, rlogging into
the main system and running term, which allows X to go over the modems
without SLIP.  Now THAT would make life much easier. 

There are very many vt220/240/100 terminals out there and I don't expect
them to go away very soon, wish plan 9 had better support for them.
I guess a 386sx minimal system running plan9 and 8.5 would do the trick
but I am not sure if plan9 has term or something similar.

vijay

comp.os.plan9

[geoff]

Alas, that was my call; I've put the RFD for comp.os.plan9
out a couple of times. The first time I couldn't really
follow it up, as thesis work intervened. Both times the
response didn't justify proceeding to a vote. I had a number
of enthusiatic responses via e-mail - but you need 100 more
YES votes than NO votes, and there's a hard core of people who
vote NO to everything that they aren't personally interested.

I didn't want the group to fail, and I don't want to create an
alt group (given that Plan 9 really does deserve it's own Big
7 group). I figure I'll wait until after USENIX before bringing
it up; who knows? If the folks from Bell publish Plan 9, then
we'll probably have trouble _not_ getting a comp.os.plan9 - look
at the interest in that astoundingly mediocre and uninteresting
Linux thing.

Geoff.