[9fans] Thank you, Russ!

["Tom Miller" <tom@tommiller.us>]

Hello, 

On this new year's eve day, when I look back
over the nice things that happened to me this
year, one of the nicest was all the help I 
received from Russ Cox.  Russ helped me get 
plan9port compiled on netbsd-macppc, and then
he adapted plan9port again when progress
on the NetBSD side broke the compile.  

Russ spent a lot of time helping me.  He went
to the extent of taking an account on the 
subject machine and working directly on it. 
The effort involved is more easily appreciated
when one realizes that Russ' having an account
on my machine meant that he had to put up with
the system administrator's faults.  He was 
graceful about helping me get ssh running, and
he didn't complain when I rebooted the machine
while he was working on it. 

Besides working directly on my machine, Russ
took his time to exchange many emails with me,
answering my questions about errors and warnings.  
His willingness to let me try to fix some things
myself probably took Russ about ten times longer 
than it would have taken had he simply finished 
the whole job by himself instead of trying to
hold my hand while I learned.  

Through the whole project, spread intermittently
over several months, Russ always was prompt, 
efficient, polite, and quick to acknowledge the 
few mistakes he made.  He even gave me a gentle 
push at a moment when my own enthusiasm was 
lagging.  

Well done, Russ!  At least until there is 
further progress on either side, plan9port 
seems to compile and work (limited testing!)
on netbsd-current for macppc.  

Happy New Year to all! 

Tom