From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <91c48a9b0f0de90e80177f87a2fe80f8@proxima.alt.za> To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: Again: (self)hosted Plan9? Was: [9fans] extending xen to allow From: Lucio De Re Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 07:01:41 +0200 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Topicbox-Message-UUID: f0dbac98-ead1-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 > - writing drivers sucks. There are two components: the hardware and the primitives in the operating system or, preferably, in the programming language. PC-hardware sucks, but in practice Xen, VMware and their ilk are all trying to provide an abstraction that doesn't. Is it really true that Plan 9 doesn't have anything additional to offer? > - copying Linux and Windows will accomplish very little. To agree violently, it makes Plan 9 like Linux and Windows and that is precisely not what I, at least, like in Plan 9. I have Linux and Windows, why would I want Plan 9 to resemble them? > - one significant place where Plan 9 wins is using it as a versatile > base for building pieces that people use without knowing it's Plan 9 > (e.g., Sape's wireless base stations, Rangboom, xcpu, and > many Inferno apps that Charles can't talk about). I think we all want a bit more glory than that, but if we all convince ourselves, we can tuck Plan 9 entirely out of sight. Problem is, we then don't get a community any more and Plan 9 does not have a profit-making organisation that can support it without the community. Or am I missing something? > - there may be real value in finding a way to use Xen or other > virtualization technologies to run Plan 9 on machines (for example, > terminals) where you care more about the convenience of having > Plan 9 than about the performance (or reliability!) of having it in > control of the hardware. > That's hard but feasible. It's just that it becomes a means to an end instead of being an objective in itself. It seems to me that that leads to stagnation at the core of Plan 9 where its strength ought to lie. Applications may make or break Plan 9, but principles are its meat, in my opinion. Of course I'm an ignorant but keen hardware hack, so I guess I'm not an authoritative voice here. > And perhaps most important of all: > > - remember to keep it fun! I can see why that should be, but I'm afraid it's hard to buy. Either that, or your idea of fun and mine are poles apart. Now, if Plan 9 could make writing drivers easily, that would be fun :-) ++L