If bringing Plan 9 to the masses will bring forth stuff like C++ and Java, I will fight against it till my dying breath.

Jokes aside. People don't want to use computers. People want to use apps. Noone will like Plan 9. Where you have to read manuals. They hate that. If you like Plan 9, and there's a usecase for it, use it. And write device drivers. That is much more helpful than trying to convince LKML folks that they need userlevel namespaces. People already tried this.


2013/12/15 Blake McBride <blake@mcbride.name>
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:


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