[9fans] My view of Plan 9 and it's future

[/usr/rsc/lib/from.eecs@plan9.bell-labs.com /usr/rsc/lib/from.eecs@plan9.bell-labs.com]

[Disclaimer: despite the occasional email
from Plan 9 servers, I don't speak for anyone but
myself; in particular, I'm not one of the day-to-day
Bell Labs guys.  I just play there when I'm not in school.]

Perhaps I have been too subtle.  Step back for a second,
and look at this discussion.

You are railing against a license that was written
in 1995.  The Internet hadn't taken off,
Eric Raymond hadn't even started to think about writing
fetchmail, Linux was not much more than a toy,
and companies giving large pieces of software away
for free was not as socially blest as it is today.

In 1995, AT&T was simply not ready or willing to give
things away for free.  $350 is orders of magnitude
cheaper than what it cost to get a UNIX license.  You
observe correctly that such a price does put it
out of the reach of most hobbyists, but it was
a big step forward, and better than not releasing
anything.

There was never any intention of making money off
the distribution; there are enormously bigger cash
sources than the handful of people who bought the
Plan 9 CD before it went out of print.  If there
was an intention of making money off it, it wouldn't
have been given away to universities in 1992.
It was and is a research system, and while commercial
systems have been derived from it, the 1995 distribution
and the upcoming one are about releasing a research
system, not selling an operating system.

The primary goal of the Plan 9 developers over the
last decade has been to construct a system that is
useful and pleasant to use.  They've done a good job.
Making money off of the sale of Plan 9 is just not
a goal.  If the developers had their way, I'd bet
Plan 9 would have been given away for free in 1995.
They want to see the system used outside Bell Labs
as much as, if not more than, anyone else.

I don't know what's in the works as far as a license,
but you'd be very wrong to assume that the plan is
to reuse the 1995 license and price tag.  Two years
ago Rob wrote here that while details were sketchy
(and might still be sketchy for all I know) a release
would likely be over the web and free for non-commercial
use, and he hasn't reneged on that vision.

Continued haranguing against the 1995 license terms
is silly, as is debating what the next license
``should be''.  If, when the distribution happens,
you find the license unacceptable, then by all means
go off and start your own open source OS with the
Plan 9 ideas.  But until then, let's have a little
patience and just wait and see what happens.

Russ