Re: [9fans] bug in echo?

[a@9srv.net]

// I haven't used PQ either.  In fact, has anyone used PQ in the
// last couple years?

Yes. In the past few years I've worked with teams building two
unrelated applications with it. One went through a technology
trial with a Tier 1 US telecom provider, but then floundered for
unrelated reasons. The other was, for years, responsible for
moving several millions of dollars around every month between
a few hundred global GSM operators. The company has since
been sold; the buying company initially decided on using our
platform to replace theirs, but then everyone I knew there left,
so I can't comment on current state. The web site for the
service is at least unchanged.

Sadly, both those projects relied on an update mechanism which
was a proprietary extention not included in the distribution.
Getting a good update mechanism that fits well with the
distrubuted version has been an ongoing challenge.

The official directory folks at ALU were, at least until shortly
after the merger, using it as a front end for an assortment of
proprietary HR-type systems. I believe that was dying out,
although I can't say as the folks I knew there have since gone
over to at&t. That group's version was an evolutionary cousin
of the Plan 9 one.

I'm also using it on a personal project, and am working on
updating the distrubution, in part in response to second-hand
requests from some folks who want to update an application
using (almost exactly) the Plan 9 version on Solaris.

So, yes. It's probably a single-digit number of active projects
and double-digit user base (not counting users of the services
these applications provide, in which case it's at least single-
digit thousands), but non-zero.
Anthony