From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 16:59:09 +0000 From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" Message-ID: <39B520F0.2A8F7817@arl.army.mil> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <39B4C71E.CEA88DDB@ysbl.york.ac.uk>, Subject: [9fans] Re: Kernighan interview (w/ Plan 9 mention) Topicbox-Message-UUID: 036d1738-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Conway Yee wrote: > Leo Caves writes: > > Its difficult to tell in what way Plan 9 might make such a transition. > First, there is usually only room for 1 "killer app" in the market and > Linux has already taken up that role. Linux, being free and sufficiently like UNIX, was able to attract the large army of hobbyist hackers that it seems to take to support the horrible PC platform with all its variety of devices, kludges, and lack of decent standards. If Plan 9 had been there first, it could have played the role that Linux now has. (This reminds me of the Blit marketing that could have competed with X11 but didn't.) Plan 9 and/or Inferno have one really major feature that "end users" can somewhat appreciate: built-in mandatory data security. If widespread use is a goal, then that feature should be touted.