From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <7ae72d180fdae73e741ff98b0192b583@proxima.alt.za>
To: 9fans@9fans.net
Date: Mon,  2 Dec 2013 16:59:38 +0200
From: lucio@proxima.alt.za
In-Reply-To: <07d69aa884813549f2627680ea470392@mikro>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] Go and 21-bit runes (and a bit of Go status)
Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8cf3105c-ead8-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025

> is the threat standing?  that is, if the plan 9 port is broken again
> when 1.5 rolls around in just a few more months, does the plan 9
> port get booted then, too?

The threat is real: Plan 9 is a burden for the developers and lack of
feedback is a valid cause for dismissal.  Of the two-prong threat,
only lack of builders is continuous: that the build may break and be
neglected for a while is not as serious as knowing that no one is
paying attention or, worse, that no one even knows that there is a
problem.

But the port is also in trouble.  I dread the need to reconcile
Gorka's work on ARM with the 1.2 release, I don't really know where to
start.  And as far as 386 and amd64 goes, I don't even know or grasp
what ails the Bell Labs release (and I agree with you that the most
recent adjustments are feeble at best), nevermind where we're standing
with 9atom, 9front and the few other versions out in the wild.

The solution is not with "open source" but with rolling up one's
sleeves and figuring out how to converge as much as possible the
different offerings.  I don't think Go needs to be thrown away, I think
it is a motivating force itself, but in this particular case we need
some leadership to guide short-term development in a better direction.

Listing the outstanding issues, technical or political, would be my
starting point, but I was not involved in most of the (not so) recent
in-fighting and I don't know how that ought to be resolved.

++L