Re: [9fans] GUI toolkit for Plan 9

[chad <y@mit.edu>]

> From: Matt H <matt@proweb.co.uk>
> ...
> Would you seriously have me believe that if plan9 went public domain
> tomorrow then by the end of March it would have 100 more users, 10
> even! I doubt even Thomas G Bushnell would be using it!

Without much effort, I can think of about half a dozen people at/around
MIT who aren't using Plan 9 right now who would be by the end of March
if `plan9 went public domain tomorrow'.  I suspect that the actual
number is much higher, actually, but that many of them would stop after
a few months.

None of the people I'm thinking of are what I'll call `hard line' free
software bigots.  Some of them simply chose to spend their time on more
`open' projects, while some of them simply cannot accept the ``I give up
my right to legal recourse if Lucent ever does anything bad to me''
clause.

It's natural and laudable to try to defend something that you like and
care for, but let's be honest here - even the core Plan 9 guys wish that
the license were `better'.  ``It is an imperfect world in which we
live.''  While license arguments have become common in some venues, and
I'm sure that they'll erupt here now and then, I (seriously!) suggest
something like:

``Yeah, the license isn't the best right now, but it's been improving
over time, and you can hardly blame `beleaguered' companies like Lucent
for being a little slow to come around.  We're using what we have now,
and in a year or two hoping that it'll get better still again.''

thanks,
chad