On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 5:55 AM, trebol 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