From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 13:29:07 +0000 From: Leo Caves Message-ID: <39B4C71E.CEA88DDB@ysbl.york.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [9fans] Kernighan interview (w/ Plan 9 mention) Topicbox-Message-UUID: 037919a2-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 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.