The future of Plan9?

[Steve_Kilbane@cegelecproj.co.uk Steve_Kilbane@cegelecproj.co.uk]

digby's comments:
> I believe Unix's role has changed from experimental system
> (it used to be small, consistant, well written and reasonably portable)
> to the only surviving viable commercial alternative to the
> Microsoft juggernaught..

But then, that's always been Unix's role: the valiant, ultimately
unsuccessful prime challenger to the currently perceived market
standard. IBM, DEC, and now Microsoft have taken their turn as
the Evil Empire, but interestingly, Unix is still hanging on as
the main contender.

> [Plan 9's] main failing,
> in my opinion, is its inability to interact with other operating
> systems conveniently.

I don't think the other operating system is a problem, because
most users aren't concerned with it. They just use it for kicking
off their main applications. The interchange of data is the important
thing.

> I still live in hope that, because Microsofts offerings are SO poor,
> a sufficently good alternative may one day supplant it.

This is quite likely. The depressing thing is, the alternative will
probably also be owned by Microsoft. :-(

> At least the
> wealth of quality free software available on the net makes developing
> alternate operating systems less of a daunting task than it used to
> be - only the core has to be build, and a quite usable suite of
> applications can be readily ported by a user community.

Huh? If I understand you, you're saying that one can bash out a
new kernel, and then chuck all the standard freebie tools on top
of it. Ok, so this is handy for researchers into OS development,
but apart from that, what does it give you that you haven't
already got? [Bzzzt! Warning: heading off-topic]

The availability of a free system helps, but not as much as it
should. There's been an on-going battle in comp.databases.oracle.*
to get Oracle to support Linux. Apart from the "only an idiot would
run their business on a [spit!] free system" attitude, many say Linux
provides too many configuration combinations for Oracle to support.
Perhaps, but Oracle could just select and approve a given distribution.
They could even ship it themselves. But they don't.

Plan 9's easier than Linux, because there's a lot less flux and a lot
less variance between any two systems. It's also much, much stranger to
your average application programmer on the inside. Ok, so there's APE,
but that misses the boat a little, philosophically speaking.

Your average user will look at Plan 9, and ask, "Does it run foo",
where foo is their primary tool, and most likely produced by Microsoft.
You're unlikely to be able to answer positively in a million years,
but if you can exchange *data* with foo and an equivalent (read: better)
app on Plan 9, you've got one foot in the door. My current .sig claims,
someone naively, that if you standardise on protocols and file formats,
the applications will take care of themselves. Plan 9 is great for
interfacing at a protocol/file format level, because of the user-mode
servers, and because files need not be passive animals.

Perhaps there's a marketing trick here. I get incensed when Internet
Explorer slyly offers to make itself the default browser, bumping
other software out of the way, niggling at the subconcious. Perhaps
a Plan 9 application could do something similar: "By the way,
Microsoft's changed their file formats *again*. Do you still trust
your old files to work?"

steve