Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Brantley Coile]

To be more serious than probably required, here are my thoughts on the
question of `Plan 9 killer apps.'

The term killer app is somewhat misleading in that when we hear it we
tend to think about the product not the user of the product.  The term
really means that there are groups of people who can use the benefits
of that product over others, giving the product a competive advantage.
The classic example is the Apple MacIntosh.  It was lost as long as it
was meant to replace the IBM PC, but as soon as folks at Apple
realised that there were people in companies who need to work with
typesetting and got the word out to them that the Mac was very good at
desktop publishing, the Mac was a hit.

This discussion has been indirectly doing that in talking about
features, all of which, I think, are good ones.  It seems to me,
however, a better question would be who can benefit most from the
unique features of Plan 9.  Or, to put it another way, Who are the
users and what are the benefits of Plan 9 features to them that they
couldn't get any where else.

  Brantley Coile www.coraid.com

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Matthias Teege]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:33:57 -0500, Brantley Coile <brantley@coraid.com> wrote:
> unique features of Plan 9.  Or, to put it another way, Who are the
> users and what are the benefits of Plan 9 features to them that they
> couldn't get any where else.

As Ronald says, plan9 offers most benefit to researchers, students and
developers. In my case I really like it because it is a system. I have
had enough from this supercharged pseudo systems with thousands of not
working/cooperating applications. Today it is really hard to get any
benefit from a traditional system. They all have to many ballast from
the past, to many bells and whistles, to many bugs and to many
marketing droids.

I'm not a developer or a researcher but for me, there is no
alternative solution today. Maybe it is the "power of textfiles" or
some kind of zen. I hope there are enough "good guys" out there to
keep it alive. Otherwise I must throw my computers out of the window.
:-)

Matthias

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Jack Johnson]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 10:33:57 -0500, Brantley Coile <brantley@coraid.com> wrote:
> This discussion has been indirectly doing that in talking about
> features, all of which, I think, are good ones.  It seems to me,
> however, a better question would be who can benefit most from the
> unique features of Plan 9.  Or, to put it another way, Who are the
> users and what are the benefits of Plan 9 features to them that they
> couldn't get any where else.

Nicely stated.

I'm surprised we don't see more usage of venti to meet the document
retention standards set by the states, the feds, or the SEC (for my
fellow Americans, but bureaucracy seems to preceed starlings and
killer bees across the planet, so I'm sure the rest of you have your
own similar issues).

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Dave Lukes]

 > I'm surprised we don't see more usage of venti

I'll be using it ASA I can,

 > to meet the document retention standards set by the states, the feds, 
or the SEC

Yes, it does, but, unfortunately, it
_doesn't_ meet the document shredding standards set by Enron, WorldCom, 
CIA, ...

    Dave.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[geoff]

Actually /sys/src/fs with a WORM jukebox strikes me as a better
archival system than venti, especially if one is really concerned
about immutability.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Jack Johnson]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:16:39 -0800, geoff@collyer.net <geoff@collyer.net> wrote:
> Actually /sys/src/fs with a WORM jukebox strikes me as a better
> archival system than venti, especially if one is really concerned
> about immutability.

I think more about longevity and sheer size.  I think in Sean's
original paper or the wiki it mentions making arenas some reasonable
size -- say 650MB -- so you can make archival copies of the arenas in
case of disaster.  Burn an archival-quality copy to CD (or multiple
CDs) and store them away for seven years in redundant locations, and
you're well on your way to meeting a whole slew of legal requirements.
 If you get paranoid about the live arenas, you can always go back and
compare checksums against the archived versions.

Plus, if you're saving seven years' worth of data, venti seems a
little more efficient at using the available storage space (*WARNING*
-- layman speaking).  Now, using WORM drives for venti arenas might be
even better....

I did chuckle at the statement about shredability, because I often
picture RIAA or the BSA rooting through someone's venti archive
looking for copyrighted material.  That MP3 deleted two days later
just lingers, waiting for the right lawyer to come along.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[vdharani]

> I did chuckle at the statement about shredability, because I often
> picture RIAA or the BSA rooting through someone's venti archive
> looking for copyrighted material.  That MP3 deleted two days later
> just lingers, waiting for the right lawyer to come along.
>
i used to think about clinton! 'erasing' is a problem with venti.

dharani

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Tim Newsham]

> i used to think about clinton! 'erasing' is a problem with venti.

So dont put the files in venti?  Seems like the ideal mix is
venti for long-lived important documents and something else
for files that turn over more often or require a short lifetime.

> dharani

Tim N.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Jack Johnson]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 15:56:05 -1000 (HST), Tim Newsham <newsham@lava.net> wrote:
> So dont put the files in venti?  Seems like the ideal mix is
> venti for long-lived important documents and something else
> for files that turn over more often or require a short lifetime.

The problem with some of the document retention standards is the
nebulous definition of what needs to be kept.

For instance, where I live the state requires any documents that
communicate daily schedules of state-funded employees or
communications regarding policy or working/draft policy to be kept for
(I think) three years.

Because bureaucrats and not geeks set the standards, we're left
wondering how often one should snapshot, say, calendar data in
Exchange to ensure that transient changes in schedules are kept at a
best-effort level to meet state standards.  We archive all mail sent
and received to alleviate the need to content-filter email for
differing 3-, 5- or 7-year standards, just as many companies bound by
the SEC now archive all instant message traffic regardless of content.

The beauty of a system like venti is that the minimal amount of space
is used for redundant data regardless of name, organizational change
or timestamp, and it relieves the archiver from deciding what is
important and what isn't.  Though copyright-infringing data is
troublesome in a permanent archive, it's exactly the reason to archive
(nearly) everything when bound by stringent rules -- to ensure the
rules are followed and to easily track compliance.

Watching people implement various document retention standards on
various platforms really makes you appreciate the simplicity and
cost-effectiveness of venti as a possible solution.  A handy vac
client for commercial platforms set to a specific schedule by policy
would be a "killer app" for many organizations.

-Jack

A little light reading:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6315_11-5054924.html
http://www.cio.com/archive/031503/tl_washington.html

A solution:
http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/vitalfileretention

A bureaucratic example:
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/archives/pdf/School%20Districts%20March%202003.pdf

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Kenji Okamoto]

> The term killer app is somewhat misleading in that when we hear it we
> tend to think about the product not the user of the product.  

I think 'killer app' of WinXP is for kindergarent.
This is because we can find many so-called 'HOWTO use XXX"
(of course written in Japanese), and when I looked into those books,
there are many pictures, yes, only the pictures, everywhere.
Probably the readers can understand "HOW TO use XXX" by those.

I suppose those way to learn are, porobably, typically adopted in
our kindergarten.

Kenji

RE: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Benjamin Huntsman]

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>This discussion keeps coming up. It has no answer for desktop guys.

Inferno makes a nice desktop, despite the fact that it's an OS in it's own right.  It works for me, though, especially if you bind it's directories to the root, so that Inferno's namespace has access to the whole Plan9 filesystem...

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Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Vester Thacker]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 09:25:31 -0800, Benjamin Huntsman
<bhuntsman@mail2.cu-portland.edu> wrote:
> 
> Inferno makes a nice desktop, despite the fact that it's an OS in it's own right.  It works for me, though, especially if you bind it's directories to the root, so that Inferno's namespace has access to the whole Plan9 filesystem...

Having Inferno hosted on Windows or Linux and accessing the whole Plan
9 filesystem would suffice my needs for a nice desktop. To me it would
be far nicer than drawterm. Perhaps Inferno might be a killer app of
sorts. IMHO at least both Inferno and Plan 9 communities would
benefit.

-vester

RE: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Benjamin Huntsman]

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Union directories and the file-oriented system... beautiful beyond words.  This is how operating systems should have been all along!!
 
-Ben

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Jack Johnson [mailto:knapjack@gmail.com] 
	Sent: Tue 11/16/2004 1:14 PM 
	To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?
	
	

	On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:17:08 -0700, andrey mirtchovski
	<mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
	> user-level "mount" and "bind" come a close second and third :)
	
	I agree, along with Steve's venti + fossil.
	
	Relatedly, I was thinking on the drive this morning that Inferno could
	actually be an interesting alternative to either the standard p2p
	networks or even freenet, with SSL and union mounts support you could
	do some interesting things, in the "killer app" vein.
	
	-Jack
	


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[9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[David Leimbach]

It's a horrible marketing term, "killer application", but I'm curious
if there was a single piece of software other than the OS itself that
has brought you to use Plan 9 in your daily or at least weekly lives.

People ask me all the time why I use plan 9 and I usually end up
saying something nice about the acme editor or the overall
environment.  With plan9port some of that is very easily simulated
natively on other Operating Systems.

It just seems since Plan 9 isn't very POSIX or ANSI C [without APE]
that it clearly won't build many unix apps out of the box.  Conversely
there might be some plan 9 application that isn't really available
elsewhere either but really stands out.

I'm not sure how people feel about advocacy but this is the sort of
information people like to hear when they ask "why bother?"

Dave

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Fco. J. Ballesteros]

> It's a horrible marketing term, "killer application", but I'm curious
> if there was a single piece of software other than the OS itself that
> has brought you to use Plan 9 in your daily or at least weekly lives.

all the development environment.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Steve Simon]

venti + fossil must be pretty high up my list,
cvs replaced by making it irrelevant - though
I still have to use it with other teams.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[andrey mirtchovski]

for me it's not a "killer app" but a "killer protocol" -- 9p rulez,
any way you look at it.

user-level "mount" and "bind" come a close second and third :)

andrey

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[matt]

plumbing
acme
bind

the only other apps I use are Apache, Postgresql & Firefox

but all editing is done in plan9 via ssh / acme / u9fs / vncv

I can't think of any drawbacks

I am Davros, my Daleks are my servers and plan9 is my control board mwahahaha



mm

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[rog]

the whole is (much) greater than the sum of its parts.

for me, the whole question "what is plan 9's killer application?"  is
misguided - it comes from an arena where each piece of software tries
to fulfil a complete end-user use scenario.

in contrast, plan 9 has *tools*, few of which are by themselves
sufficient to accomplish a particular goal; but it also provides an
infrastructure that provides support for combining these tools
together.

if i build a tool in the plan 9 style, it instantly becomes an
integrated part of the whole plan 9 "application".

unix started down this road, but plan 9 goes so much further, by
making it trivial to combine existing tools with aspects of a running
program's interface.

the fact that i can do something like:

	grep -i Plan /mnt/term/mail/fs/mbox/3136/body > /mnt/acme/new/body

counts for an amazing amount.

the only sad thing is that it lacks many of the tools that it would be
nice to have, given the capabilities of today's hardware.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Charles Forsyth]

>>the only sad thing is that it lacks many of the tools that it would be
>>nice to have, given the capabilities of today's hardware.

the only sad thing is that it lacks many of the toys that it would be
nice to have, given the capabilities of today's hardware.

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Kenji Okamoto]

>>>the only sad thing is that it lacks many of the tools that it would be
>>>nice to have, given the capabilities of today's hardware.
> 
> the only sad thing is that it lacks many of the toys that it would be
> nice to have, given the capabilities of today's hardware.

Ahaha, however, toys are very important to men to live.☺

Kenji

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Richard Miller]

How about: immunity against Windows/GNU/Linux viruses, trojans, worms etc?

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Ronald G. Minnich]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Richard Miller wrote:

> How about: immunity against Windows/GNU/Linux viruses, trojans, worms etc?


it doesn't matter. you're not going to sell plan 9 to open office or 
microsoft office users, so stop worrying about it. It's a research OS 
still, may always be; the big issue now is to just keep it from dying.

This discussion keeps coming up. It has no answer for desktop guys. 

ron

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Jack Johnson]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 09:17:08 -0700, andrey mirtchovski
<mirtchov@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
> user-level "mount" and "bind" come a close second and third :)

I agree, along with Steve's venti + fossil.

Relatedly, I was thinking on the drive this morning that Inferno could
actually be an interesting alternative to either the standard p2p
networks or even freenet, with SSL and union mounts support you could
do some interesting things, in the "killer app" vein.

-Jack

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Matthias Teege]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:07:20 -0800, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's a horrible marketing term, "killer application", but I'm curious
> if there was a single piece of software other than the OS itself that

For me it is yesterday(1)
Matthias

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Vester Thacker]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 08:07:20 -0800, David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure how people feel about advocacy but this is the sort of
> information people like to hear when they ask "why bother?"

On a lighter note, you can say that you are on a quest. That always
gets folks attention. ;) IMHO being a Plan 9er has much in common with
Don Quiote -- following a dream regardless of the current madness.

-vester

Re: [9fans] Plan 9 killer applications?

[Dan Cross]

Vester Thacker <vester.thacker@gmail.com> writes:
> On a lighter note, you can say that you are on a quest. That always
> gets folks attention. ;) IMHO being a Plan 9er has much in common with
> Don Quiote -- following a dream regardless of the current madness.

(Don's a black suit, fedora, and sunglasses....)

I'm [sic] on a mission from God.

	- Dan C.