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