Re: [9fans] Re: 9fans Digest, Vol 27, Issue 52

[Skip Tavakkolian <9nut@9netics.com>]

> Or may be its way is most suited for some future where
> computers as public transport for a variety of unrelated
> programs are a thing of the past?

yes; but future is now.  how many digital gizmos does a person have?
mobile phone, ipod, digital camera, pots phone. throw in a pda,
a laptop and a desktop and there it is.

what's the killer app for plan9?  the vector is toward distributed
access to resources.  9grid is extending the sharing to process space.
we're betting on our shared name space system.  apps for collaboration
are another area of possibility; checkout VN's solutions based on
inferno.  plan9 doesn't need to be "in your face" to be useful.  the
way we're using plan9, it is transparent to the end user.

the amount of success is directly related to the amount of money
behind the os or platform. linux offered real savings on
acquisition and maintenance over windows; windows' success was in
providing a common platform for "productivity" applications, that had
positive returns on investment to the user and revenue to the app
developer - the largest being ms itself.

once a killer app is created that shows a clear advantage for using
plan9 over other os, it will be adopted.  availability of p9p means
that app developers can take advantage of the model, while still
satisfying any dictated requirements for a more known os; this is
likely to be the case early in the adoption curve, despite the fact
that plan9 is much easier to learn and maintain than other os