> "major piece among many" can be more precisely stated as "many pieces among
> many in order for the platform to achieve a critical mass of users".

the metaphor "critical mass" is really tiresome one.  it does not apply
to operating systems.  if one person finds the os useful, then that's enough.

i'm not entirely clear how this metaphor is supposed to be interpreted, but
perhaps the idea is that with lots of users, lots of software gets written and
clearly more is better.

or maybe not.  plan 9 is a research system.  for me that means we use it as
it makes doing new and interesting things, or the same thing in an interesting
way easy.  so having piles of ported software is at best a distraction.

- erik