[9fans] Governance question???

[9fans] Governance question???

[Kurt H Maier]

erik quanstrom wrote:
>ignoring the spurious and fallacious arguments, the remaining point is
>false.

can you specify which one you're addressing?

>for example, there are members of at least 4 different organizations
>participating in nix.

not sure which point this addresses.

9front does not require organizational affiliation, for the record.

[9fans] Governance question???

[IainWS]

I am currently looking into Plan 9's governance as part of a project
and was asked this question: does Plan 9 have a Benevolent dictator
for life (B.D.L) similar to python's Guido van Rossum? I can't seem to
find any one other than the four original authors of the system. Would
I be wrong in saying there are four dictators?

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

On May 14, 2012, at 12:14 PM, IainWS wrote:

> Would
> I be wrong in saying there are four dictators?

Yes, there's just good taste :)

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Bruce Ellis]

Good taste is its own reward.

On 14 May 2012 20:32, Francisco J Ballesteros <nemo@lsub.org> wrote:
>
> On May 14, 2012, at 12:14 PM, IainWS wrote:
>
>> Would
>> I be wrong in saying there are four dictators?
>
> Yes, there's just good taste :)

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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I thought we were an autonomous collective.

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Steve Simon]

> I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Yes, but somhow a "Gang of four" sounds so much more exciting.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Richard Miller]

I would say the de facto dictators are those with write permission
on /n/sources/plan9, namely:

	sys:sys::glenda,rsc,jmk,sape,ehg,pb,geoff,bootes

And they're mostly benevolent.  (Not sure about glenda.)

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[dexen deVries]

On Monday 14 of May 2012 11:51:45 Richard Miller wrote:
> And they're mostly benevolent.  (Not sure about glenda.)

she anything but: http://mirtchovski.com/p9/images/glendatux.jpg


-- 
dexen deVries

[[[↓][→]]]

Weightless and alone
you speed through the eerie nothingness of space
you circle 'round the Moon
and journey back
to face the punishing torment of re-entry

-- LUNA-C, ``Supaset8 (full release)'', #24m52s

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[IainWS]

On May 14, 8:51 pm, 9f...@hamnavoe.com (Richard Miller) wrote:
> I would say the de facto dictators are those with write permission
> on /n/sources/plan9, namely:
>
>         sys:sys::glenda,rsc,jmk,sape,ehg,pb,geoff,bootes
>
> And they're mostly benevolent.  (Not sure about glenda.)

Exactly what I need! Thank you!

However things like who handles legal issues in the project, who is
the release manager ( if there is going to be another release ), a
"decision maker" - and so on, are some of the answers I am looking
for. Is there funding for the project coming from bell-labs? Sorry to
press on these issues but a small focus of the project concerns
structure of it.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Aram Hăvărneanu]

Plan 9 is a research platform for programmers, not a product. As such,
your questions don't make sense. Everybody maintains their private
trees because this is the way the system is supposed to be used. Plan
9 has a philosophy, but not a direction. There's no single roadmap. At
least not anymore.

Legal issues in the project? Unlike a particularly successful free
software project, the Plan 9 community cares about code and not about
licensing.

-- 
Aram Hăvărneanu

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 15:05:56 +0200
Aram Hăvărneanu <aram.h@mgk.ro> wrote:

> Plan 9 is a research platform for programmers, not a product. As such,
> your questions don't make sense. Everybody maintains their private
> trees because this is the way the system is supposed to be used. Plan
> 9 has a philosophy, but not a direction. There's no single roadmap. At
> least not anymore.

I think this is the clearest thing I've ever read on the state and
governance of Plan 9, but at the end of the day somebody does rule what
does and does not go into the iso, and that has a very strong influence
on the system as a whole. As far as I'm aware that somebody is usually
Geoff.

A comparison with 9front might be interesting. Governance played some
role in 9front forking from Plan 9. (Not as big a role as I may have
stated in the past, my apologies to everyone who saw that.) I'm tempted
to call 9front a military junta, but really the person who gets the
most say is the person with the most time and ability to contribute
code. The 9front community is a funny place. Insults fly like swarming
bees but as soon as some idea comes up which doesn't look ridiculous at
first glance they get stuck right in, a lot of discussion happens. Same
for bug fixing.

> Legal issues in the project? Unlike a particularly successful free
> software project, the Plan 9 community cares about code and not about
> licensing.

Ditto for 9front, although they have replaced the fonts which were
licensed "for distribution with Plan 9 only." Even this wasn't solely
license-oriented; they cleaned up the font size numbering while they
were at it.

I think the 9front crowd cares about being a community and having one
central tree with all the fixes and even all the features which meet
their standards. There is certainly a latent disdain for the way
desirable things may be lost in the forest of contrib. What their
standards are is harder for me to say but they hate things which
complexify the base system, such as nix's application-core feature.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[sl]

EthanG will be disciplined.

-sl

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Mon, 14 May 2012 14:34:39 +0000
sl@9front.org wrote:

> EthanG will be disciplined.
>
> -sl
>

What? Did I forget to promulgate dbus again? But you all only decide
you like dbus at the end of a hard day, I wrote all that before lunch.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[dexen deVries]

On Thursday 17 of May 2012 15:57:07 Ethan Grammatikidis wrote:
> On Mon, 14 May 2012 14:34:39 +0000
>
> sl@9front.org wrote:
> > EthanG will be disciplined.
> >
> > -sl
>
> What? Did I forget to promulgate dbus again? But you all only decide
> you like dbus at the end of a hard day, I wrote all that before lunch.

i have used dbus recently, via dbus-send(1) and qdbusviewer. it's like a
filesystem populated with filesystem servers, only that you can't mount(3),
open(3), stat(3), etc. anything.


--
dexen deVries

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Christoph Lohmann]

Greetings.

On Thu, 17 May 2012 17:45:00 +0200 dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday 17 of May 2012 15:57:07 Ethan Grammatikidis wrote:
> > On Mon, 14 May 2012 14:34:39 +0000
> > 
> > sl@9front.org wrote:
> > > EthanG will be disciplined.
> > > 
> > > -sl
> > 
> > What? Did I forget to promulgate dbus again? But you all only decide
> > you like dbus at the end of a hard day, I wrote all that before lunch.
> 
> i have used dbus recently, via dbus-send(1) and qdbusviewer. it's like a 
> filesystem populated with filesystem servers, only that you can't mount(3), 
> open(3), stat(3), etc. anything.

Dbus  is  a  message bus full of flaws. Objects need to be announced, in
the protocol is a switch between text and binary, you can get the object
definitions  as XML and the API, which forces you to use a 160 character
terminal, is wrapping you around glib.

Every dbus user should be forced to read this: [0]

Maybe you only mistakenly took the alternative object notation as a path
as some kind of filesystem.


Sincerely,

Christoph Lohmann

[0] http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Kurt H Maier]

On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 05:38:13PM +0200, dexen deVries wrote:
>
> i have used dbus recently, via dbus-send(1) and qdbusviewer. it's like
a
> filesystem populated with filesystem servers, only that you can't
mount(3),
> open(3), stat(3), etc. anything.
>

I have driven a motorcycle recently, via freeways and city streets.
It's like a space shuttle populated with rocket engines, only you take
off, fly, orbit, land, etc. anything.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Thu, 17 May 2012 17:38:13 +0200
dexen deVries <dexen.devries@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 17 of May 2012 15:57:07 Ethan Grammatikidis wrote:
> > On Mon, 14 May 2012 14:34:39 +0000
> >
> > sl@9front.org wrote:
> > > EthanG will be disciplined.
> > >
> > > -sl
> >
> > What? Did I forget to promulgate dbus again? But you all only decide
> > you like dbus at the end of a hard day, I wrote all that before lunch.
>
> i have used dbus recently, via dbus-send(1) and qdbusviewer. it's like a
> filesystem populated with filesystem servers, only that you can't mount(3),
> open(3), stat(3), etc. anything.
>
>

Oh great. It's a file system full of brain-damaged crap AND you can't
use it in a sane way.

How many of these brain-damaged file systems are there? We have the
Windows registry, gconf, dbus... what else? lol.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Anthony Sorace]

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On May 14, 2012, at 7:54 , IainWS wrote:

> However things like who handles legal issues in the project, who is
> the release manager ( if there is going to be another release ), a
> "decision maker" - and so on, are some of the answers I am looking
> for. Is there funding for the project coming from bell-labs? Sorry to
> press on these issues but a small focus of the project concerns
> structure of it.

These aren't unreasonable questions, but they do sort of presume a
structure that doesn't really match what folks around these parts do.
For example: "if there is going to be another release" misses the fact
that Plan 9 is on a sort of continuous update cycle (I believe some
projects call this a "rolling release" schedule). It's not clear we'll ever
see a "Plan 9 5th Edition" out of Bell Labs, but they do produce
continuous work. In our tradition (inherited from Research Unix),
releases correspond mostly to printed manual sets.

If by "Plan 9" you mean the "mainline" release from Bell Labs, Geoff
is the main community-visible decision maker there. I believe there
are a few other folks actively working on things in the Labs who
don't participate here (we miss you, Jim!). It's more of a job than a
BDFL-like position (other people have had the role in the past). He
(as far as I can tell from the outside) is the main arbiter of what goes
into the mainline distribution.

But "Plan 9" often refers to the broader set of directly-derived
systems, like 9atom, 9front, and the two NIXes (at least). Each of
those has their own structure (you might say 9atom has the BDFL
you're looking for, 9front has a cabal, and the NIXes each have
partly-overlaping autonomous collectives). It's a wonderful mess.

Bell Labs employs a few people who spend part of their time
working on Plan 9, and provides the most common centralized
infrastructure. They may have contributed funding to one of the
NIXes, I'm not sure. They haven't funded 9atom or 9front (other
than what those projects inherited in code, obviously).

Who handles legal issues? The answer's probably "nobody". Or
everyone handles their own. That's not an entirely good thing, but
it's certainly worked reasonably so far.

I hope some of that's helpful.
Anthony


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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Christoph Lohmann]

Greetings.

On Mon, 14 May 2012 16:12:41 +0200 Anthony Sorace <a@9srv.net> wrote:
> But "Plan 9" often refers to the broader set of directly-derived
> systems, like 9atom, 9front, and the two NIXes (at least). Each of
> those has their own structure (you might say 9atom has the BDFL
> you're looking for, 9front has a cabal, and the NIXes each have
> partly-overlaping autonomous collectives). It's a wonderful mess.

All  mentioned  words  are  part  of the eternal fight between DP9IK and
SP9SSS. As we all know is DP9IK winning.

> Who handles legal issues? The answer's probably "nobody". Or
> everyone handles their own. That's not an entirely good thing, but
> it's certainly worked reasonably so far.

We have been using 9front to design physical packages.


Sincerely,

Christoph Lohmann

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Anthony Martin]

Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> once said:
> All  mentioned  words  are  part  of the eternal fight
> between DP9IK and SP9SSS. As we all know is DP9IK winning.

We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should
be united against the common enemy!

  Anthony

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Christoph Lohmann]

Greetings.

On Tue, 15 May 2012 14:19:37 +0200 Anthony Martin <ality@pbrane.org> wrote:
> Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> once said:
> > All  mentioned  words  are  part  of the eternal fight
> > between DP9IK and SP9SSS. As we all know is DP9IK winning.
> 
> We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should
> be united against the common enemy!

I think it won’t be possible for the Secret Plan 9 Secret Secret Society
to keep their plans open and in compliance with any  standard  the  Open
Source  community is working with. Why do you think are they called like
that?

Solving  these problems of people developing everything in secret places
and not keeping »the community« informed is  what  created  9front.  Now
handle  what  you  created  with your own culture. I don’t think the now
ruling Plan 9 people will change themselves, they don’t need to.

Most development on 9fans is about Mac OS X anyway.


Sincerely,

Christoph Lohmann

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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That was actually a joke. The real reason not to keep plans open is there
are no plans in
the conventional meaning of the word. Let's check:

"  1. A draught or form; properly, a representation drawn on a
plane, as a map or a chart; especially, a top view, as of a machine,
or the representation or delineation of a horizontal section
of anything, as of a building; a graphic representation; a diagram.

  2. A scheme devised; a method of action or procedure expressed
or described in language; a project; as, the plan of a constitution;
the plan of an expedition.
  God's plans like lines pure and white unfold. M. R. Smith.

  3. A method; a way of procedure; a custom.
  The simple plan,
   That they should take who have the power,
   And they should keep who can. Wordsworth.
  Body plan,
  Floor plan, etc. See under /Body/, /Floor/, etc.
  Syn. -- Scheme; draught; delineation; plot; sketch; project;
design; contrivance; device. See /Scheme/."

No, I don't think anything has ever been as concrete as that. Dreams,
perhaps.
We could share our dreams, I suppose. Really, we just make it up as we go
along, I think.

On 15 May 2012 13:19, Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> wrote:

> Secret Plan 9 Secret Secret Society

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Burton Samograd]

My G/F was asking how many people use Plan9.  Does anybody have an
estimate of the size of the community?  I said maybe 20 or 30 to her,
but I'm sure that's low.

--
Burton Samograd (+1 to community size estimation :)

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Connor Lane Smith]

Hey,

On 15 May 2012 13:42, Burton Samograd <burton.samograd@gmail.com> wrote:
> My G/F was asking how many people use Plan9.  Does anybody have an
> estimate of the size of the community?  I said maybe 20 or 30 to her,
> but I'm sure that's low.

19 people (by my count) have posted to this one thread. It's probably
quite difficult to work out the exact number, and it depends how you
define 'the community', but I suspect it's quite a few more than you
suspect.

cls

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[dexen deVries]

On Tuesday 15 of May 2012 06:42:42 Burton Samograd wrote:
> My G/F was asking how many people use Plan9.  Does anybody have an
> estimate of the size of the community?  I said maybe 20 or 30 to her,
> but I'm sure that's low.

there used to be that `9grid' thingie (can't find much of it anymore), which
offered free accounts to anyone who bothered asking.

there was a public list of user accounts on some page; IIRC well over 50. some
had custom face(7)s.

--
dexen, +1 to p9p users only

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Anthony Sorace]

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> there used to be that `9grid' thingie (can't find much of it anymore), which 
> offered free accounts to anyone who bothered asking.
> 
> there was a public list of user accounts on some page; IIRC well over 50. some 
> had custom face(7)s.

9grid is a bit of an overloaded term, but I think you're thinking of something else
regardless. The Tokyo Inferno / Plan 9 Users Group (TIP9UG) was, until a
catastrophic hardware failure, the longest-running public Plan 9 resource, and
had the page of faces of people with accounts, which I suspect you're referring
to, on their web site. Sadly, that's gone now, but thanks to the Wayback Machine,
we can take a look at it near the failure point:
	http://web.archive.org/web/20080724201812/http://www.tip9ug.jp/who/index.html
Looks like in the neighborhood of ~150 people (of course, that has the same
problem of any web/public service, where that includes people who signed up
and never came back).

9srv.net (which I run) provides public accounts for interested folks. See the wiki
for instructions on making a request. It's not as well-developed as tip9ug was,
and we've got about a dozen users (same caveat as above), but it's growing. I
would like to do something like tip9ug's faces page, but haven't gotten there yet.

Anthony


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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[cinap_lenrek]

there might be more plan9 users than you think.

ever used the web? ever used google chrome? well,
turns out, google chrome is just a covered up
drawterm!

why does google run all these data centers? thats
because they'r running webkit (which is really
written in go) on google servers wich are all
plan9 machines with a ubuntu themed rio wallpaper
to cover it up!

more evidence:

- javscript v8 engine... v8 is the first unix rob contributed to
- chrome has no windows titlebar... like rio
- the google black bar is rob making fun of dwm
- NaCL using x86 segmenting for sandbox... like 9vx
- chrome spawns lots of processes... one 9p request at a time per process
- google drive... it's so late because it's powered by fossil.
- in the binary numeral system, one would need 333 bits to represent a googol.
  ... 3x3=9

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[erik quanstrom]

On Tue May 15 21:44:21 EDT 2012, cinap_lenrek@gmx.de wrote:
> there might be more plan9 users than you think.

all kidding aside, take a job in athens.  see for yourself.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Christoph Lohmann]

Greetings.

On Wed, 16 May 2012 15:04:45 +0200 erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> On Tue May 15 21:44:21 EDT 2012, cinap_lenrek@gmx.de wrote:
> > there might be more plan9 users than you think.
> 
> all kidding aside, take a job in athens.  see for yourself.

Athens is full of rioting people these days. I wouldn't go there.

A comparison between a common tool in Athens and 9front:

http://navpointalpha.net/9features.jpg


Sincerely,

Christoph Lohmann

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Robert Raschke]

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Wrong Athens, methinks.

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> wrote:

> Greetings.
>
> On Wed, 16 May 2012 15:04:45 +0200 erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>
> wrote:
> > On Tue May 15 21:44:21 EDT 2012, cinap_lenrek@gmx.de wrote:
> > > there might be more plan9 users than you think.
> >
> > all kidding aside, take a job in athens.  see for yourself.
>
> Athens is full of rioting people these days. I wouldn't go there.
>
> A comparison between a common tool in Athens and 9front:
>
> http://navpointalpha.net/9features.jpg
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Christoph Lohmann
>
>
>

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Kurt H Maier]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 02:16:29PM +0100, Robert Raschke wrote:
> Wrong Athens, methinks.

Easy mistake to make.  Most of Georgia is also full of common tools.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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Athens Georgia (USA, not the country) is a small, pleasant university town
with Plan 9, restaurants, pubs and live music.
Avoid Atlanta, however, which has none of those things.

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[hiro]

There are towns without restaurants and pubs in America?

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

On May 16, 2012, at 4:03 PM, hiro wrote:

> There are towns without restaurants and pubs in America?

More than there are in Spain.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Dan Cross]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:03 AM, hiro <23hiro@googlemail.com> wrote:
> There are towns without restaurants and pubs in America?

Yes.  Americans tend to have bars, rather than pubs.

Forsyth's characterization of Atlanta is largely correct, but his
conclusion (to avoid) is incorrect.  Atlanta has Coca Cola and two
streets named "Peach"; the latter intersect.

        - Dan C.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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That's probably fair: I had a bad time in Atlanta (my research notebooks
were stolen).

On 16 May 2012 15:21, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Forsyth's characterization of Atlanta is largely correct, but his
> conclusion (to avoid) is incorrect.
>

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Richard Miller]

> I had a bad time in Atlanta

My clearest memory of Atlanta is watching the "murder report" on the
hotel TV which was a bit like a weather report - "there were X murders
in Atlanta this week, that's Y more than the same week last year but
Z% below the seasonally-adjusted weekly average murder rate..."

Are we getting a bit off topic here?

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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Not really. I think this conversation has successfully hinted that a benign
dictator would eventually be compelled to adopt more ruthless measures.

On 16 May 2012 16:10, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:

> Are we getting a bit off topic here?

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[sl]

> I think this conversation has successfully hinted that a benign
> dictator would eventually be compelled to adopt more ruthless measures.

See /lib/theo.

-sl

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[hiro]

You just like listening to yourself talk. Shut up.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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... that you might enjoy entering ... and leaving.

On 16 May 2012 15:03, hiro <23hiro@googlemail.com> wrote:

> There are towns without restaurants and pubs in America?

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> Athens is full of rioting people these days. I wouldn't go there.

you aced Geography.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Christoph Lohmann]

Greetings.

On Tue, 15 May 2012 14:42:52 +0200 Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> wrote:
> No, I don't think anything has ever been as concrete as that. Dreams,
> perhaps.
> We could share our dreams, I suppose. Really, we just make it up as we go
> along, I think.

There  was  a  need to provide a real »Plan 9 project« somewhere. 9front
does provide this in the best way. Of course it is fueled by the cultur‐
al values the cynism of the Plan 9 niche.

On  the  other side the (now two!) Nixes, 9atom, Plan 9 from (corporate)
Bell Labs are either too academic or dead. They are only fueled  by  the
business   or  academic positions  of persons in the specific subgroups.
I can’t imagine 9fronters to work under the iron  fist  of  the  quality
rulers  in  Nix.  But I can’t imagine the Nixers to give up control over
their code review[0].


Sincerely,

Christoph Lohmann

[0] http://9front.org/img/9codereview01.png

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[erik quanstrom]

> On  the  other side the (now two!) Nixes, 9atom, Plan 9 from (corporate)
> Bell Labs are either too academic or dead. They are only fueled  by  the
> business   or  academic positions  of persons in the specific subgroups.
> I can’t imagine 9fronters to work under the iron  fist  of  the  quality
> rulers  in  Nix.  But I can’t imagine the Nixers to give up control over
> their code review[0].

ignoring the spurious and fallacious arguments, the remaining point is false.
for example, there are members of at least 4 different organizations
participating in nix.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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I forgot to mention that apart from there actually being no plan as such,
no one really was able to afford the time and energy to organise a big
community thing and keep it going. (Even sources is not a full-time matter.)

On 15 May 2012 13:42, Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> wrote:

> There  was  a  need to provide a real »Plan 9 project« somewhere. 9front
> does provide this in the best way. Of course it is fueled by the cultur‐
> al values the cynism of the Plan 9 niche.
>

The first part is understandable, but the latter perhaps sometimes
works against the aims of the first part!

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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Yes, I see you've realised that "Nemo" has nothing to do with that nautical
fellow,
but refers to the Latin motto "Nemo me impune lacessit"!

On 15 May 2012 13:42, Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> wrote:

> I can’t imagine 9fronters to work under the iron  fist  of  the  quality
> rulers  in  Nix.
>

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

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damn, I'll have now to seek for another uid....

it's all in the open.

On May 15, 2012, at 8:54 PM, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, I see you've realised that "Nemo" has nothing to do with that nautical fellow,
> but refers to the Latin motto "Nemo me impune lacessit"!
> 
> On 15 May 2012 13:42, Christoph Lohmann <20h@r-36.net> wrote:
> I can’t imagine 9fronters to work under the iron  fist  of  the  quality
> rulers  in  Nix.
> 

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[hiro]

what is this about?
goes back to TV.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Skip Tavakkolian]

I would like to point out that The Popular Front for Plan 9 - General
Command (T.P.F.P.9 - G.C.) has stated its position regarding B.D.F.L
in the past; please see the 9fans archive (search for "halibut").

P.S. The Popular Front is not affiliated with 9 People's Front (9front
-- which by-the-way is less than 9 people).

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[sl]

> P.S. The Popular Front is not affiliated with 9 People's Front (9front
> -- which by-the-way is less than 9 people).

Splitters!

-sl

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[kokamoto]

> but refers to the Latin motto "Nemo me impune lacessit"!

Sorry, off topis.
What does this Latin motto mean?
I have no Latin based culture...

Kenji -- still learning octopus and inferno☺

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[cinap_lenrek]

http://3cx.org/media/1/20040203-Nemo-Found.jpg

--
cinap

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[andrey mirtchovski]

> http://3cx.org/media/1/20040203-Nemo-Found.jpg

I like this new "let's not take ourselves too seriously" 9fans mailing
list much more enjoyable.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Gorka Guardiola]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 2:30 AM,  <kokamoto@hera.eonet.ne.jp> wrote:
>> but refers to the Latin motto "Nemo me impune lacessit"!
>
> Sorry, off topis.
> What does this Latin motto mean?
> I have no Latin based culture...
>
> Kenji -- still learning octopus and inferno☺
>
>

It means (loosely translated) no-one provokes me without punishment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_me_impune_lacessit

Famous for Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" story
and being on the side of a pound coin.
http://static.twoday.net/mahalanobis/images/pound1984.jpg

G.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Francisco J Ballesteros]

Where "no-one" is aka Nemo.

On May 16, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Gorka Guardiola wrote:

> It means (loosely translated) no-one provokes me without punishment.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[hiro]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:25 AM, Francisco J Ballesteros <nemo@lsub.org> wrote:
> Where "no-one" is aka Nemo.
>
> On May 16, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Gorka Guardiola wrote:
>
>> It means (loosely translated) no-one provokes me without punishment.
>
>

So in NIX' recent politically incorrect fuck-up no-one was actually harmed?
Seems like you guys are trying to fuck with our brains!

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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In the end it was better to design and write code than to argue.
Serenity reigns.

On 16 May 2012 12:22, hiro <23hiro@googlemail.com> wrote:

> So in NIX' recent politically incorrect fuck-up no-one was actually harmed?

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[kokamoto]

> So in NIX' recent politically incorrect fuck-up no-one was actually harmed?
> Seems like you guys are trying to fuck with our brains!

According to my understanding, you are always fuck with our brains.
Nemo and Forsyth are both very important persons here, because
they make much contributions by writing codes.

Kenji

PS.  Thanks all to answer mt querry from other world

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Charles Forsyth]

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"Thank you, I kind of got the idea that Plan 9 is an informal hobby/
research platform, and that the community contributes where they can,
unless its something serious like a new release (probably not up to
everybody)."

It's more than a hobby/research platform, although we sometimes say that to
save time explaining.
It has some non-trivial commercial application, for instance, partly
because it's small, malleable,
and generally tidy, and partly because several ideas (name spaces and 9P)
are especially fruitful when building
certain classes of distributed system.

It's informal in the sense that there isn't any one individual or group in
charge,
but the different groups working on Plan 9 have their own degrees of
formality and civility.

As Anthony Sorace said, there hasn't been a "release" as such since 2004,
because distribution
switched to frequent incremental updates over the Internet, in one way or
another.

The "Plan 9" trademark is Alcatel-Lucent's (for "operating system computer
programs").
It's good until 2017. Alcatel-Lucent also has a few patents relating to 9P
and various
aspects of the name space: 5,623,666 for example.

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Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[IainWS]

Thank you, I kind of got the idea that Plan 9 is an informal hobby/
research platform, and that the community contributes where they can,
unless its something serious like a new release (probably not up to
everybody).

> Who handles legal issues? The answer's probably "nobody". Or
> everyone handles their own. That's not an entirely good thing, but
> it's certainly worked reasonably so far.

The Software Freedom Law Center (S.F.L.C.) is a good resource for
this.

Indeed it is worthwhile for a project to maintain things like
trademarks (such as Glenda) from stammers attempting to take or abuse
the idea. Red-Hat actively maintains its trademark, but has the money
to do so (apparently its costly). Indeed complying with the licence is
better result and can be achieved by a phone call or email as the
violators do so because they don't understand free and open source
software licencing in the first place.

The main idea with having a legal officer I guess is to protect
intellectual property. If a big corporation like Microsoft takes a
certain idea and tries to step around the licencing agreement in place
- they should be accountable!

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[tlaronde]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 12:32:35PM +0200, Francisco J Ballesteros wrote:
>
> On May 14, 2012, at 12:14 PM, IainWS wrote:
>
> > Would
> > I be wrong in saying there are four dictators?
>
> Yes, there's just good taste :)
>

Since the OS was designed ; is simple ; is consistant, not a lot of
people can claim to "improve it" by moving commas, adding trivialities,
finding in a very lengthy perimeter of an obese system an unseen detail
to focuse on.

A significant change would mean a significant work. And there are not a
lot of people in the "open" (community) able or ready to work
significantly.

Hence, Plan9 is in part, by design, insulated from entropy.

--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Bruce Ellis]

Ahhhhh - Bund Deutscher Fußball-Lehrer - of course!

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Gorka Guardiola]

2012/5/14 Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com>:
> Ahhhhh - Bund Deutscher Fußball-Lehrer - of course!
>

Nein, british defense film library.

G.

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[Balwinder S Dheeman]

On 05/14/2012 05:00 PM, tlaronde@polynum.com wrote:
> On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 12:32:35PM +0200, Francisco J Ballesteros wrote:
>>
>> On May 14, 2012, at 12:14 PM, IainWS wrote:
>>
>>> Would
>>> I be wrong in saying there are four dictators?
>>
>> Yes, there's just good taste :)
>>
> 
> Since the OS was designed ; is simple ; is consistant, not a lot of
> people can claim to "improve it" by moving commas, adding trivialities,
> finding in a very lengthy perimeter of an obese system an unseen detail
> to focuse on.
> 
> A significant change would mean a significant work. And there are not a
> lot of people in the "open" (community) able or ready to work
> significantly.
> 
> Hence, Plan9 is in part, by design, insulated from entropy.

Plan 9 has never approached Unix in popularity, and has been primarily a
research tool:

	Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a
	compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor.
	Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust
	spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its
	position. There is a lesson here for ambitious system
	architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an
	existing codebase that is just good enough. — Eric S. Raymond[3]

Other criticisms focused on the lack of commercial backup, the low
number of end-user applications, and the lack of device drivers.[26][27]

See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs> for the
references.

-- 
Balwinder S "bdheeman" Dheeman
(http://werc.homelinux.net/contact/)

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[erik quanstrom]

> Plan 9 has never approached Unix in popularity, and has been primarily a
> research tool:
> 
> 	Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a
> 	compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor.
> 	Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust
> 	spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its
> 	position. There is a lesson here for ambitious system
> 	architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an
> 	existing codebase that is just good enough. — Eric S. Raymond[3]

the implicit definition of success here—popularity—is one i would
reject.  popularity has nothing to do with fitness for a purpose.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[tlaronde]

On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 02:32:17PM +0000, Balwinder S Dheeman wrote:
> On 05/14/2012 05:00 PM, tlaronde@polynum.com wrote:
> >
> > Hence, Plan9 is in part, by design, insulated from entropy.
>
> Plan 9 has never approached Unix in popularity, and has been primarily a
> research tool:
>
> 	Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a
> 	compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor.
> 	Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust
> 	spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its
> 	position. There is a lesson here for ambitious system
> 	architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an
> 	existing codebase that is just good enough. ? Eric S. Raymond[3]
>

I'm aware of this (and of who...). But this doesn't contradict what
I wrote: there are small "systems" out there, used by small
communities, that "evolved" from a reliable small codebase to huge
beasts, with no improvment made, but only an indefinite amount of
"tries" added, loosing the needle in a haystack.

Since Plan9 is small and the very spirit is to have, on the user
level, one small tool that does the job and no overlapping (a
mathematical partition) it is insulated from userland improvment---that
go to contrib. And since, on the kernel level, the principles are
few, before trying to adapt to a corner case taking the presence
of such hacks elsewhere as an excuse to add some more, you have to
dive in the whole because even a small piece has impact everywhere.
So even when there are short comings, the alternative solution is
never a panacea and one finally conclude that the original compromise
was a good one if not the best.

And seeing how Unices are fighting to try to get things working in an
environment not made for it (union fs for example; X having put the
network at the wrong articulation point and now trying to put back the
servers in the kernels etc.), the "technical merits" have more to do
with human inertia than with technicality. Inertia does exist; but "good
enough" is more: evolving exceeds my will to work and the material
benefits I can expect, and I will loose my position as a "Y system
wizard".
--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89  250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

Re: [9fans] Governance question???

[IainWS]

On May 14, 8:39 pm, charles.fors...@gmail.com (Charles Forsyth) wrote:
> I thought we were an autonomous collective.

Sorry quick edit, it should actually read B.D.F.L.