From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] design issues in operating systems
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-Id: <20011203225025.58E71199B5@mail.cse.psu.edu>
Date: Mon,  3 Dec 2001 17:50:23 -0500
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 2f720af4-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

On Mon Dec  3 15:52:18 EST 2001, mike@ducky.net wrote:
On Mon Dec  3 15:52:18 EST 2001, mike@ducky.net wrote:
> I suspect one important factor in the popularity of Linux
> is the relative openness of the development process of Linux.
> There are regular releases of the latest version of the
> code, even when there are works in progress that aren't
> finished yet.
>
> By contrast the Plan 9 developers are constantly dropping
> all these hints about how great the next thing will be,
> but the rest of us never get to see any code until it's
> "done" -- and big changes take a long time.
>
> I think Plan 9 would have a more enthusiastic following
> if the ongoing development tree were out there for everyone
> to see (and contribute to).

Do we hint that the next thing will be great? If so, we should stop.
It may or may not be great but it will be different, I think that's
about as far as I'd be willing to go.

The plan is to put a fileserver on the outside for everyone to access.
The details and time-line are still foggy as they rely on 2 of the 'big
changes' - new authentication and a reworking of the fileserver code.