[9fans] Ideas from Plan-9

[Blake McBride <blake@mcbride.name>]

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On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 5:55 AM, trebol <trebol55555@aol.com> wrote:

> .....  The lack of a
> web browser capable of deal with today's madness and the portability
> limitation of ape (at least for a ignorant like me) forcesme to deal
> with other OS I have to install and maintaining, so the simplicity and
> cleanness I like so much of plan9 become useless.  Thanks to Russ Cox for
> P9P!

....
>

This is a great segue into a point I was hoping to make.  I read Rob Pike's
comments at:

    http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/

and it really got me thinking.  What a great idea he talked about!  I think
this may be at the heart of the Plan-9 idea.

Mind-share and markets rarely move with sense or logic.  The better
approach rarely wins. It is more a matter of critical mass of mind-share.
 Linux, for a lot of really good reasons, has that mind-share (in the
technical arena).  (Of course Windows has much more mind-share do largely
to the fact that most users are non-technical and don't understand the
difference - not to mention Microsoft's bullying of the market...)

I think Plan-9 suffered from two big issues.  The first was lack of
mind-share (crowd acceptance).  It is very hard to compete with Windows &
Linux.  The second was lack of support for a huge need - a fully functional
browser.

In spite of some really great ideas, I think we'd all agree that Plan-9 has
no real future.  On the other hand, I believe that some of the best ideas
Plan-9 brings us can and should be a part of the future.  I think the best,
most practical way to bring those ideas to wide-spread use and availability
is to implement those ideas in the Linux kernel.  I understand that, since
Linux is not Plan-9, there would be compromises and limitations, but it
would be a huge step in the right direction.  Plan-9 proved those ideas in
an ideal environment.  Just like what Smalltalk did to the world - creating
C++, Java, the mouse, etc., Plan-9 can bring its ideas to the mainstream
through additions and improvements to existing technology like Linux.

Just some thoughts.

Blake McBride

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