From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
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To: 9fans@9fans.net
Date: Thu,  8 May 2014 14:39:28 +0200
From: lucio@proxima.alt.za
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Subject: Re: [9fans] [GSOC] plan9 which arch code to use?
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> since it's not clear to me from reading this (forgive my reading comprehension),
> i run 9atom on rb, kw, and rpi in addition to amd64.  i run the pc and pcpae
> kernels when there are changes.  i know others also run 9atom on the rb.
> sadly i don't have a teg2 or original beagle.

One can interpret this as advocacy for 9atom or confrontation against
the Bell Labs release.  It's OK, I am more of a bigot for sticking to
the BLR than you are for promoting your valuable efforts, but I don't
want to disclose all the reasons for me being such a bigot, it would
be boring without being "relaxing".

However, the issue remains that there could be one true Plan 9 if the
community kept their bigotry under control and contributed useful
effort in its stead.  Now, there are two major hurdles in my opinion,
and everything pales against them.  Feel free to argue with that, I'm
not adequately informed and much prepared to learn:

(1) Bell Labs are lagging behind 9atom and 9front in support for a lot
of hardware (old and new), a situation that, by getting progressively
worse may cause them to drop out of the race altogether and (2) The
amount of effort and ego bashing required to bring the different
releases in line is considerable and no one is likely to take such a
mission on without knowing that, at minimum, the "owners" of the
various distributions are willingly supportive of such efforts.

Now, point (1) can be addressed by treating the Bell Labs distribution
as one more "fork" and proceeding towards a new distribution which
will eventually be accepted by Bell Labs as well, while (2) needs the
Plan 9 community to rally behind a single communication channel, open
to all willing contributors and lurkers, where amendments to each fork
are submitted for discussion.  In particular, it is essential that CLs
be shaped in a way that each fork can accept them, especially the
convergence fork.

Now, I'm not in a position to suggest how each of these objectives can
be attained and if I go off and do something like I proposed earlier,
there will be little chance that my efforts will stay ahead of
environmental changes.  Thus, I think the floor should be opened to
all interested parties to discuss how we can combine our efforts with
minimal cost in resources.

We have no deadlines, we just need to have clear objectives and
willing contributors.  Doing without detractors would be great, but I
wouldn't count on that much.

++L