Sell me on Plan 9

Sell me on Plan 9

[Paul]

> These facts lead me to beleive that this rather expensive release is nothing
> more than a beta test.  I will agree that some of the apparently few
> benefits of this system may be useful, but the price to experiment with
> these benefits is much too high.

Expensive?  $350 for a site source license?  Every computer in
your company?  That seems pretty cheap to me.  That is cheaper
than 5 copies of Windoze (which does not include source).

> After all this I have one question: Why should my company buy Plan 9?
> Please do not misread my tone.  I guess I simply don't understand the whole
> Plan 9 marketing concept.  I will continue to monitor the Plan 9 mailing
> list for more information.

That all depends on what your company does.  I don't think I can answer
that.  The best way to find out is to spend the minor amount of money
and try it out for yourself.

				-Paul

Sell me on Plan 9

[philw]

there is not and was not a Plan9 marketing plan.
We did some interesting RESEARCH and decided it
was worth releasing to allow people to experiment
with what we think is a very nice system.

We then applied alot of the ideas and technology
from Plan 9 to Inferno. We made something that will
become a product and will be supported by our company.

When the product group picks up inferno we will
return to doing operating system research in Plan9/Brazil
and I hope we will be able to continue to serve
up our work to an interested community. I expect
that much of the code and many of the ideas in inferno
will make it back into Brazil.

As an aside, I should like to point out that Plan 9
and inferno are different things and should not be
considered interchangable. I can see commercial
applications for both systems. As for Plan9 being
a beta, well thats essentially true - we spent
no money doing a release, we just pressed a CD.
The code has been in production at murray hill
for years as our main environment - I dont think
it is any more buggy than any major Unix system;
its just there is no support, so a community
of interested people fix and post patches - which
is a really nice way of doing business.

phil

Sell me on Plan 9

[Shon]

If this should be directed elsewhere, please forward or return with
forwarding instructions.

I got interested in Plan 9 some time ago when I stumbled across it on the
Web.  What I've read seems to suggest that this OS provides easier access to
system resources for application development (users typically do not care
how their applications interact with their hardware, as long as they get the
expected result).  Other than this, it seems to be another networking
environment.

I subscribed to the Plan 9 mailing list in an attempt to learn more about
the OS.  I have learned a great deal.  One thing I have discovered is the
fact that there are still numerous bugs in the system.  Many apparently due
to attempts to port to other machines.

These facts lead me to beleive that this rather expensive release is nothing
more than a beta test.  I will agree that some of the apparently few
benefits of this system may be useful, but the price to experiment with
these benefits is much too high.

Inferno and Limbo have tremendous potential.  Universal application
compatibility across all platforms will surely have an impact on this
industry.  Since universal compatibility is the goal and since Inferno will
be released to run under several operating systems, it would be much more
beneficial to develop applications to further the use of these tools.

After all this I have one question: Why should my company buy Plan 9?
Please do not misread my tone.  I guess I simply don't understand the whole
Plan 9 marketing concept.  I will continue to monitor the Plan 9 mailing
list for more information.

A response at your convenience will be appreciated.
----------------------
S Frazier
President
VTI
Covington, GA
vtipres@mindspring.com