From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <acf68fa2a36e6d2268127a89ca075f62@proxima.alt.za>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] interesting potential targets for plan 9 and/or inferno
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:28:00 +0200
From: lucio@proxima.alt.za
In-Reply-To: <9ab217670703151136g79dc5cebt749fede7973f02e6@mail.gmail.com>
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> I don't know, and I never said anybody denied me anything. You asked
> who [in the Plan 9 community] cares, I answered. I do.

Fair enough.  But the second question remains: where does Plan 9 fit
in?  Plan 9 started life with minimalist aspirations and grew up in a
world that has embraced computing paradigms that seem in conflict with
these aspirations.  There seems to me that there are two options: 

1.  Considerable resources are applied to produce or port a minimum
set of applications (Gnome, FireFox, Evolution, OpenOffice, the Gimp,
say) to Plan 9, thus competing on a better level with Linux and, to a
much smaller extent, with Windows, or

2.  The available resources continue to be applied to problems closer
to the Plan 9 concept space (Abaco, Omero, GSoC projects, etc.).

As I see little merit in making another Windows of Plan 9, even via
the Linux route, I prefer the second option.  Also, I don't understand
the benefits of the first option: when I want Linux, NetBSD or
Windows, I have them all at my fingertips, at least in one version.
None of them is an adequate replacement for any of the others, so I
don't see how Plan 9, considerably less mainstream/orthodox than any
of the others, could ever aspire to grab marketplace from any of its
competitors.  Certainly, I won't sell it on that ticket.

++L