[9fans] Kernighan interview (w/ Plan 9 mention)

[Leo Caves <caves@ysbl.york.ac.uk>]

There is an interview with Brian Kernighan at
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mihaib/kernighan-interview/index.html
where (amongst a number of topics) Plan 9 is mentioned
in the context of the open-source movement. 

Here is a verbatim quote from the article:

"As for Plan 9, I think that's too late, unfortunately. I think Plan 9 was a
great idea and it should've been released under an open-source license when it
was first done, eight years ago, but our legal guardians would not permit it. I
think that they made a grievous mistake. The current open-source license is
definitely worth having but it's not clear whether Plan 9, at least as a
general-purpose operating system, will have much effect except in a relatively
small niche. It has many things going for it which make it valuable in different
areas, particularly where you need a small and highly portable operating system,
but is it going to take over from Linux? Probably not." 

Its difficult to disagree with these remarks.   However, key
is the nature of the niche(s) that Plan 9 will occupy (aside
from system's research - its ideas 
are already propagating into other systems).
Currently, its "popularity" belies its influence (and at this
stage that is probably a good thing).

Arguably, Linux transitioned from its hobbyist niche
to a wider acceptance through a server role.  The effort now
seems to be back to the desktop.

Its difficult to tell in what way Plan 9 might make such a transition.