Re: [9fans] The PATENTED IBM MULTI-PIPE : the evolution of unix pipes

[John Floren <john@jfloren.net>]

On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 10:17 AM,  <mycroftiv@sphericalharmony.com> wrote:
> John Floren wrote:
>> I probably didn't read the iosrv and hubfs stuff well enough, but
>> multi-pipes are not like gnu screen--unless hubfs and/or iosrv can
>> do barriers and reduces and I just missed that part?
>
> The connection to screen is really only in usage.  Iosrv and Hubfs
> were the result of trying to give myself persistent rc shells in Plan
> 9.  Because of the absence of the TTY layer, it seemed like the thing
> to do was to buffer and multiplex each file descriptor of a shell, and
> allow multiple clients to connect to those buffers.
>
> Even though this architecture was created for keeping persistent rc
> shells around, I realized that it was actually a very beautiful
> general purpose extension of the original unix pipes, and could be
> used for a large number of purposes, including cluster processing type
> applications.
>
> So the connection to screen is not "technical" at all - just that the
> main purpose I wrote iosrv/hubfs for (and btw hubfs is vastly superior
> to iosrv for practical use if anyone is interested) was to keep
> persistent rc shells around on remote machines for analogous usage to
> screen.
>
> Anyway, I think multipipes/hubs/pipemuxers are just a good idea for
> Plan 9 (and probably standard unixes too) and that they fit
> beautifully with 9P and the whole system.  I'd like to move forward
> with trying to make good Plan 9 software and not have this particular
> little patent kerfuffle turn into anything majorly disruptive.
>
> Ben Kidwell
> "mycroftiv"
>
> -Who would rather go back to trying to explain ANTS and hoping
> that other Plan 9 users would take an interest and explore it.
>

Well, you made it a kerfuffle, and then somebody decided to post it to
HN, so well done that. If you come in saying "Oh look somebody made a
patent but I think this is prior art", expect a kerfuffle. (That's a
good word. Kerfuffle)

Looking through my mail archives, I found a link from Eric that led me
to http://graverobbers.blogspot.com/search/label/brasil which I think
contains the seeds of multi-pipes. Note that these were all posted
prior to your time-traveling expedition.

john