Re: [9fans] Software philosophy

[Keith Gibbs <k@pixelheresy.com>]

>> 3) the p9f website promotes links to the Plan 9 archive software (V1-V4),
>> 9legacy as "Plan 9 with many useful patches", the RPi version and other
>> Plan 9 resources. 9front is _never_ mentioned at all. It seems like they
>> don't consider 9front as a Plan 9 system at all.
>> 
> That is true and only P9F can address that issue. Which does rather
> throw a spanner in Keith's complaints about me, because his claim is
> that P9F want to assimilate and dominate 9front, based on a very thin
> claim from me that I would be happier in a 1P9 universe. But let's not
> ad hominem unnecessarily.

Oh Lucio… I didn’t say that. You are either skimming to make arguments against what you *think* I said, or just being disingenuous to muddle my position. 

I didn’t say P9F was planning on it. You suggested it in your original response to Demitrius. I joked about blessing 9front as official, to point out how divisive and absurd it would be for a non-elected governing body to impose anything on an Open Source community and *then* pointed out how the P9F’s mission materials is about promoting and not regulating. 

I never said the P9F specifically wanted to reign in 9front as a recalcitrant child, rather that some community members here [you included, but a few other vocal ones] seem insistent that “good” features and fixes in 9front be demanded as patches from 9front devs to a project they do not participate in. Cinap and others have in fact made patches this here and there, but the idea the tribute is demanded for audience is absurd. Much like your motorcycle metaphor, there are ways to build in consistency and compatibility besides appeals to authority.

> What seems to be harped upon by the vocal defenders of 9front,
> however, is this fictional idea that there is another community, let's
> call them "9legacy", that is attempting to subvert 9front's efforts to
> gain some kind of recognition in the bigger picture. I know no one
> whose preference, like mine, is to stick closer to the 9legacy release
> of Plan 9, who in some way wants to reduce the value of 9front. Just
> as OP points out, cooperation between David and Cinap and colleagues
> has been cordial, if occasionally confrontational, for many, many
> years. So Hiro and Kurt and others can be scratchy and no doubt so can
> I, I don't think any of us have done any permanent damage to the 9fans
> or the narrower 9front community.

I think this may be a bit of a straw man argument, at least in terms of myself, peers I have spoken to in the 9front community, 9gridchan folks, etc. It is less 9front vs 9legacy. My position is more 9front & 9legacy coexisting vs a vocal minority who actively pepper messages with with rhetoric supporting a theoretical [forced] merger or culling of 9front in favor of a more authentic/pure version. As I said in my email to Eli, it is less a dichotomy between factions as a position where people in both 9front and 9legacy [and p9p users, etc. etc.] would happily see a positive mutual community of peers all congregating in 9fans living in cooperation and harmony vs. those who demand that there be some authority to legitimize one thing and force others to come to heel or leave. 

Making “P.S.” call outs to garner support for 1P9 (especially by means of appeal to external authority) forces me to speak up. Simple as that. The 9fans community knows me a bit less [since I mostly ready and enjoy discussions], but 9front/9grid/other OSS communities kind of know me as a positive, easy going, get along with everyone kind of guy. Call it “Papa Bear” instincts as a dad, or because I have been in the midst of other OSS drama over the years [and occasionally have seen what were tantamount to hostile, undemocratic takeovers of software projects], I kind of feel like I need to protect everyone’s little garden.

> So what I'm saying is that 9fans exists, it IS a community; 9front
> (the OS) has its own community that overlaps in part with 9fans;
> 9legacy (the code) has users, individuals, mostly, who may ignore
> 9front, but cannot possibly be accused in any real sense of
> participating in a counter-9front conspiracy. If there is any evidence
> to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

I am not seeing it as a conspiracy [as I said in the prior, not as malice either]. You and several others seem to feel that “Plan 9” as an OS becomes stronger through editorialization by means of a single vision [whether person or committee]. Since P9F has been announced, some people are expressing a “need” for a single, definitive Plan 9 [post V4 in January, 2015]. You probably think that is the best. You and others advocating for it are the heroes of your story… of your vision.

Conversely, quite a lot of people [not ironically including most 9front devs] don’t want authority. They kind of like having the Plan 9 flavor they use. I mean Jeanne is cool [I like 9front better] and kind of like the switch to markdown and some minor unix-isms included in the OS. Some people will probably consider that their jam. For a lot of us, if any official body would come to being to be a feature/compatibility steering group, it needs to be one that is elected, rather than just some group doing the community a favor by holding some rights. 

In this way, us on the other side of the fence are basically just saying, “yeah, no 1P9, especially dictated down from P9F is a bad idea for our robust and diverse community”.

>> 5) I really wished p9f would tell us more about their plans. It really
>> seems like it's what we (9gridchan chat) feared in the beginning: a
>> secret society. p9f is very silent, currently only seems to manage GSoC
>> and nothing more. They told us they needed time to organize GSoC and
>> themselves, but that was in january/february!
>> 
> I think P9F has performed the most important duties they set
> themselves: they are providing a useful umbrella to protect Plan
> 9-related resources from becoming extinct and have modernised the Plan
> 9 software licence to protect Plan 9 from being hi-jacked by hostile
> groups. Do you think anything else is required of them?
> 
> As for the issue of Plan 9's "name", I agree with Keith that 9front
> may take exception at being left out of the Plan 9 nomenclature and I
> think it is up to the 9front community to approach P9F to negotiate
> what should be the final outcome. I have no idea what it means for
> 9front to be or not to be a "Plan 9" and, off-hand, I bet no one else
> in this forum has considered this a relevant issue. But maybe it
> should be and whereas "Plan 9" is some kind of intellectual property
> owned by P9F, 9front may be welcome to use it.
> 
> In fact, there is some thin ice there, so 9front may well want to
> investigate this and approach P9F for clarification, before P9F makes
> a decision that may not go down well with everyone.

Actually, I remember discussing this with sirjofri and others at the beginning of the year. It’s cool that they got the rights from Nokia, so it can be relicensed as a fully free license. Cool that there is a sponsorship org for GoS requirements [even if the decision-making process was a bit opaque]. But what are the P9F doing otherwise? Back in the day, we knew the community had Lucient’s support for what we were doing. As with Nokia. There was a relationship of sorts. Whereas the P9F (as an org) as been kind of silent.

I think most of us know better to conflate the individuals [most of which are here] with P9F or their word as the word of that body, so we don’t. But either regard, we have been given little detail.

Similarly, there were at least 2-3 rounds of calls to include 9front in the roll of projects. Sure, part is that some of the pages are copypasta from old websites, but really. HTML isn’t hard. It is either laziness or political. 

>> It's fine if they want to be silent, but it would be nice to see what we
>> can expect from them. Currently it seems like they just want to share
>> links to 9legacy and the archive and organize GSoC and hide the fact that
>> 9front exists.
>> 
> How do you "hide a fact"? Are you also infected with that conspiracy
> theory? And what would P9F possibly gain from such an absurd stance?
> 9front appears 11 times (5 or so distinct entries) in the Plan 9
> wikipedia page. I guess the "authors" may be able to remove these
> references, but would it not be better if the 9front community chose
> to create a wikipedia entry for themselves? That said, if there was a
> conspiracy, would the conspirators not have already wiped out 9front
> from a wikipedia page over which they presumably have some level of
> authority?

This is a disingenuous argument.

If someone looks for Plan 9 and finds the Official Plan 9 Foundation, they only have links to 9legacy, p9p, and Inferno. If you know nothing else, you think that is all that exists of the Plan 9 community. 

Between 9front and Harvey (and others), you are missing a fair portion of the development community in Plan 9 space, and arguably quite active.

Again, I am not sure you understand what conspiracy means. It’s either intent or neglect. 

> Thank you for raising them. As I said up front, I am not a P9F member
> of any kind. But I know that its intentions are far less nefarious
> than of those who wittingly ascribe nefarious intentions to them.
> Again, 9front has an "inside", get it to address with P9F their and
> your reservations. If they don't respond, then you and other 9fronters
> can bring evidence of ill intentions to this forum.

Dude. We aren’t after the heads of P9F. Settle down.

The general problems 9front folks have with P9F so far mostly boils down to the lack of representation. That’s it.

I cannot find anywhere were the P9F or any member speaking on behalf of the org said that we should have One Plan 9. 

We have beef with the One Plan 9 idea. Or at least the all people I have talked to about this topic.

Sirjofri’s email (which you responded to bit by bit, but you may have lost the context) is to respond to the fact that the P9F never said boo about 1P9, that is likely implies they don’t want it… but… needs to be a bit more actively supportive of other communities within the greater Plan 9 fold… That’s it. He nor I are blaming 9PF for your terrible idea.

-pixelheresy


> Lucio.

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