[9fans] Re: Anyone still running plan9?

[Brandon Black photon@nol.net]

On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, David Hogan wrote:

> Michel Oosterhof wrote:
> > cwr@cts.COM (Will Rose) writes:
> > >Michel Oosterhof (kirth@cal044204.student.utwente.NL) wrote:
> > >: Hello, to whoever might read this.  Is anyone still running plan9?
> > >: Further more, is someone still working on the UNIX ports of several
> > >: plan9 utilities? (the rc shell, the 9wm (8 1/2) window manager, etc?
>
> I run Plan 9 at home.  The company I work for uses Plan 9.  `<gasp!>'
> I think we're the only one ;-)
>
> > >Me.  And I don't think I've seen a post in this group for the last
> > >3-4 months - I assumed the distribution was screwed.
>
> Well, it used to be bidirectionally gatewayed with the 9fans list;
> I don't think this is happening any more.  I'm cc-ing this to 9fans
> for comment/elucidation.
>
> > 9wm is a clone of 8 1/2, and runs on linux too, I'm using it at the
> > moment. (1.2pre version).
>
> I guess I should do another release of 9wm one of these days.  It's
> been ``1.2pre'' for over a year now ;-)  I guess I should just say,
> well, that _was_ 1.2, and here's 1.3.  Though, there aren't that
> many changes that I've made -- a few bug fixes.  Might be time for
> a ``maintenance release''.  I'm such a procrastinator...
>

It really irks me a little that so many people want *nix ports of Plan 9's
window manager, or editor, etc... but nobody wants to take the really
great ideas.  WHy won't somebody take things like the namespacing stuff,
the 9P and IL protocols, the fileserver/cpuserver/terminal concepts... all
the good "internals" of Plan 9 and make an effort to bring those ideas
into modern freeware *nix clones.  Merge it into Linux, or NetBSD, or
HURD....   That would be a much more worthwhile effort.

Brandon