Re: [9fans] Rant (was Re: Plan9 and Ada95?)

[Lucio De Re <lucio@proxima.alt.za>]

On Thu, Nov 08, 2001 at 03:43:53PM +1000, George Michaelson wrote:
>
> Folks, its a research tool. Its not a bet-the-farm-lucent-will-rise-again
> product, its not a tool for the masses, If Tom Duff can make movies on it
> thats way cool, but please, don't turn it into the kind of packaged crap
> its "finger-quotes" competing against.
>
I'm not sure where this discussion is going.  I started by questioning
the wisdom of criticising competing products in a detrimental rather
than constructive fashion, a habit I believe detracts from the
otherwise impeccable record of the Plan 9 developers and contributors.

Naturally, I also wanted to know where the attitude originated and
whether it was conceivable that it could be better channeled.  Not
that I can express myself so well as to be understood without much
gesticulation and verbal diarrhoea.

> For me, half the pleasure of reading about this thing is that its obviously
> fanatically small, and reductionist. Making it any bigger will ruin it.
>
A lot of same criticism seems to point to a desire to see Plan 9
gain its rightful position in the operating system marketplace and
the unfairness of it having to compete with obviously inferior
products with greater market share.

I certainly can't speak for the Plan 9 developers, but in my opinion
the Plan 9 concepts, across the board, deserve much greater
acceptance.  Where I believe my opinions disagree with the Plan 9
developers' is how such broader acceptance should occur: I'm almost
Microsoftish with an "embrace and extend" philosophy, while "they"
seem to have more of an "educate and conquer" approach.

At the core, I have always believed that we can draw on the broad
developer community for further development, mainly because that
is all I can contribute to Plan 9 myself.  It is my impression,
and it must please be seen as such, that the Plan 9 developer are
fearful that the GNU/Linux/*BSD etc. developer community will
"taint" Plan 9 with their indiscriminate bloat.  Maybe such
contamination is possible (I believe it is called miscegenation in
the Old Testament) and likely, but I would argue that we have not
yet seen the results that are so greatly feared, and that we should
encourage the experimentation, not prevent it by taking a critical
approach to it.

I don't expect the Plan 9 team to agree with me, we have a very
different outlook at the "social" level, but perhaps there are
others on this mailing list who feel that the "social experiment
(Che Guevara)" is worth conducting even if the casualties could be
numerous.

Naturally, unlike Che Guevara, I don't propose to snatch the
leadership position from the Plan 9 team, quite the contrary, I
very much appreciate their continued contribution.  I would just
appreciate it even more if they were encouraging rather than critical
in those areas that apparently offend their sensibilities.

++L