[9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[Rudolf Sykora]

Hello,

I've been recently reconsidering employment of
plan9. And (probably like many others) I find myself
indecisive about whom to follow. It seems that the
most conservative option is Bell Labs (BL). Then, still in
sync, there is 9legacy. Slightly separate there is 9atom,
and finally there is 9front. The latter two probably
live on their own. The questions that arise:

1) How often does Bell Lab's version change? How often/well
do patches from 9legacy enter BL's version? Some numbers?

2) How do 9atom and 9legacy notice that there has been
a change in BL? (I'd guess that 9legacy could notice
immediately, but ...) How is it with 9atom?

3) How is updating supposed to work in case of 9atom
and 9legacy (as compared to BL's replica) I.e., when
I decide to use either 9atom or 9legacy and at some
point there is some change in them, will I / can I
easily notice and follow?

4) Is there any good reason not to follow 9atom, but
BL instead?

5) I am puzzled about licences. At one point I almost
thought that the software is actually BSD-like
(i.e. you can do almost whatever, no copyleft,
Lucent Public License Version 1.02). Now I read:

    In February 2014 the University of California, Berkeley, has been
    authorised by the current Plan 9 copyright holder – Alcatel-Lucent
    – to release all Plan 9 software previously governed by the Lucent
    Public License, Version 1.02 under the GNU General Public License,
    Version 2

so the mentioned univesity will offer it under GPL, which is viral
(is copyleft). That surprises me...

Thanks for your comments!

Ruda

Re: [9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[David du Colombier]

> 1) How often does Bell Lab's version change? How often/well
> do patches from 9legacy enter BL's version? Some numbers?

There used to be changes on sources almost every day,
up to March 2014. Now the latest change is from September 17.

Most of the 9legacy changes where included into Plan 9.
Unfortunately, Plan 9 is now in a pretty frozen state.

> 2) How do 9atom and 9legacy notice that there has been
> a change in BL? (I'd guess that 9legacy could notice
> immediately, but ...) How is it with 9atom?

I'll speak for 9legacy. Most of the patches are automatically
applied on the latest Plan 9 CD image on a regular basis.

When a patch doesn't apply anymore, I fix it.
When a patch has already been applied, I remove it.

> 3) How is updating supposed to work in case of 9atom
> and 9legacy (as compared to BL's replica) I.e., when
> I decide to use either 9atom or 9legacy and at some
> point there is some change in them, will I / can I
> easily notice and follow?

9legacy is really just a set of patches available on
top on Plan 9. It's not a full distribution like 9atom
or 9front.

I didn't want to run my own replica server, having
to keep the whole repository synchronized with Plan 9.

Instead, I chose to simply provide a list of patches
that any Plan 9 user might find useful and install
on its machine.

If you choose to install from a 9legacy CD image, you
will get updates from the /n/sources replica server.

That said, now that Plan 9 is not as actively maintained
as it used to be, 9legacy might move to his own
full distribution.

> 5) I am puzzled about licences. At one point I almost
> thought that the software is actually BSD-like
> (i.e. you can do almost whatever, no copyleft,
> Lucent Public License Version 1.02). Now I read:
>
>     In February 2014 the University of California, Berkeley, has been
>     authorised by the current Plan 9 copyright holder – Alcatel-Lucent
>     – to release all Plan 9 software previously governed by the Lucent
>     Public License, Version 1.02 under the GNU General Public License,
>     Version 2
>
> so the mentioned univesity will offer it under GPL, which is viral
> (is copyleft). That surprises me...

Plan 9 is currently available under LPL 1.02 (/n/sources)
or GPLv2 (https://github.com/brho/plan9).

Unfortunately, this is a complicated story. Ron could tell you
more about this. Alcatel-Lucent refused to distribute Plan 9
under a more liberal licence than GPLv2.

-- 
David du Colombier

Re: [9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[da Tyga]

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Thank you for the clarification, I was puzzling over similar issues.

You could also consider 9vx <http://swtch.com/9vx/> especially if you are
tempted to try running under Qemu or some other virtualised environment.
Although I'm only at the exploratory stage, I find 9vx more useful than
9front.

I also use the Raspberry Pi image
<http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/contrib/miller/9pi.img.gz> which is
surprisingly easy to install and use.  I found it easier to get going than
Bell Labs release on various old i386 systems.



On 19 December 2014 at 02:46, David du Colombier <0intro@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 1) How often does Bell Lab's version change? How often/well
> > do patches from 9legacy enter BL's version? Some numbers?
>
> There used to be changes on sources almost every day,
> up to March 2014. Now the latest change is from September 17.
>
> Most of the 9legacy changes where included into Plan 9.
> Unfortunately, Plan 9 is now in a pretty frozen state.
>
> > 2) How do 9atom and 9legacy notice that there has been
> > a change in BL? (I'd guess that 9legacy could notice
> > immediately, but ...) How is it with 9atom?
>
> I'll speak for 9legacy. Most of the patches are automatically
> applied on the latest Plan 9 CD image on a regular basis.
>
> When a patch doesn't apply anymore, I fix it.
> When a patch has already been applied, I remove it.
>
> > 3) How is updating supposed to work in case of 9atom
> > and 9legacy (as compared to BL's replica) I.e., when
> > I decide to use either 9atom or 9legacy and at some
> > point there is some change in them, will I / can I
> > easily notice and follow?
>
> 9legacy is really just a set of patches available on
> top on Plan 9. It's not a full distribution like 9atom
> or 9front.
>
> I didn't want to run my own replica server, having
> to keep the whole repository synchronized with Plan 9.
>
> Instead, I chose to simply provide a list of patches
> that any Plan 9 user might find useful and install
> on its machine.
>
> If you choose to install from a 9legacy CD image, you
> will get updates from the /n/sources replica server.
>
> That said, now that Plan 9 is not as actively maintained
> as it used to be, 9legacy might move to his own
> full distribution.
>
> > 5) I am puzzled about licences. At one point I almost
> > thought that the software is actually BSD-like
> > (i.e. you can do almost whatever, no copyleft,
> > Lucent Public License Version 1.02). Now I read:
> >
> >     In February 2014 the University of California, Berkeley, has been
> >     authorised by the current Plan 9 copyright holder – Alcatel-Lucent
> >     – to release all Plan 9 software previously governed by the Lucent
> >     Public License, Version 1.02 under the GNU General Public License,
> >     Version 2
> >
> > so the mentioned univesity will offer it under GPL, which is viral
> > (is copyleft). That surprises me...
>
> Plan 9 is currently available under LPL 1.02 (/n/sources)
> or GPLv2 (https://github.com/brho/plan9).
>
> Unfortunately, this is a complicated story. Ron could tell you
> more about this. Alcatel-Lucent refused to distribute Plan 9
> under a more liberal licence than GPLv2.
>
> --
> David du Colombier
>
>

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Re: [9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[Rudolf Sykora]

On 19 December 2014 at 04:11, da Tyga <cyberfonic@gmail.com> wrote:
> You could also consider 9vx especially if you are tempted to try running
> under Qemu or some other virtualised environment.
> Although I'm only at the exploratory stage, I find 9vx more useful than
> 9front.

Well, I'd really like to try p9 proper again, especially because I want it
to work as a file server with backup functionality (fossil+venti).
Thus I do not want it to be under any virtual machine or whatever...

I haven't ever use 9vx. In what sense you find it more useful than
9front?

Thanks
Ruda

Re: [9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[David du Colombier]

> I haven't ever use 9vx. In what sense you find it more useful than
> 9front?

9vx is really just a kernel, so you can use 9vx with any of the
Plan 9, 9atom or 9front user space.

Also, 9vx have a different purpose than a Plan 9 installation.
For example, you can use 9vx on top of Linux, as a terminal
to a Plan 9 file server.

--
David du Colombier

Re: [9fans] questions about 9atom and 9legacy; and their updates

[Rudolf Sykora]

Thanks, David, for the answers.


> That said, now that Plan 9 is not as actively maintained
> as it used to be, 9legacy might move to his own
> full distribution.

Are then 9legacy and 9atom too apart to somehow
"merge" them?

Ruda