From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: chad To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] GUI toolkit for Plan 9 In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:49:30 GMT." <20020228104930.297c3bf6.matt@proweb.co.uk> References: <181b9e858518e43368953c1050365780@plan9.bell-labs.com> <20020227125118.N26250@cackle.proxima.alt.za> <87elj6zgsl.fsf@becket.becket.net> <20020228104930.297c3bf6.matt@proweb.co.uk> Message-Id: <20020301132528.D22C27A07B@home.jenwa.org> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 08:25:22 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 5f3a1bbe-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > From: Matt H > ... > 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