[9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Adriano Verardo]

Hi all,

As a professional user I think that Plan9 could be better than *nix for a
large class of  industrial - not time critical - applications but in
Italy nobody
use it, except of no more than a dozen of fans. The University doesn't
know it at all.
Of course, this is what I see. I would be happy if the picture were
different.

Speaking with my clients I see that almost all appreciate Plan9. But,
even if some
of them defined it "fascinating", the common sense is that, without
guarantees about
its longevity, it could be a wrong choice.

How can I reply to this objection ?

Reading the thread about plan9.bell-lab.com I understand that Bell Labs
are no more directly committed in the project. Is it correct ?

Adriano

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Skip Tavakkolian]

> without
> guarantees about
> its longevity, it could be a wrong choice.
>
> How can I reply to this objection ?

i think for most companies the issues are (a) lack of people with
skills to build and maintain plan9 systems and (b) most IT departments
are used to -- and seek -- point solutions that solve specific
problems and have easy management interfaces.

in my opinion the easiest way to sell an enterprise solution is to
sell it as a hardware component; it's doubly true of systems that take
advantage of good technologies that IT has not heard of (yet).

-Skip

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Anthony Sorace]

Plan 9 is an open source project; as such, you get at least
the same baseline "guarantees" about its longevity as every
open source project enjoys: as long as someone's interested,
work can continue.

there are still Bell Labs staff who work on Plan 9, although i
don't believe they're working on it for its own sake (at least
not officially). i don't believe ALU has made any sort of
corporate commitment to the OS, that's true.

the "longevity" of any open source OS is based on the
community surrounding it; this is as true for Plan 9 as it is
for Linux and most of the BSDs (and various other things).
our community is way smaller than those, but my sense is
we're stronger in many ways than we've been for most of
the OS's life (we've got less Bell Labs involvement than we
did for the first half, but a broader range of contributors).
Plan 9 ships in at least one commercial product, which
wasn't true for most of its life (i can only think of those
2e-based video systems from earlier; anyone else?), and is
used in some really large research projects by people
outside the Labs.

i, at least, would be interested to know more about what
the specific concerns are. that is, is it about availability,
future evolution, commercial support, or something else?
anthony

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Uriel]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 6:25 PM, Anthony Sorace<anothy@gmail.com> wrote:
> Plan 9 is an open source project

The Plan 9 code base (at least the released parts of it) is open source.

Plan 9 is *not* an open source project, it can hardly be called a
project even: There is no release management, there is no development
process, there is no way to know what anyone is working on, no way to
have any idea of what changes and features to expect in the future or
when, or when any given bug might be fixed, or even a bug database for
that matter, nor a way to know what changes have been made or why
(other than computing your own diffs based on past snapshots).

So you are on your own, you can take the code (while the site happens
to be up, or from a mirror), do whatever you like with it, but that is
all there is and all anyone can count on.

uriel

>; as such, you get at least
> the same baseline "guarantees" about its longevity as every
> open source project enjoys: as long as someone's interested,
> work can continue.
>
> there are still Bell Labs staff who work on Plan 9, although i
> don't believe they're working on it for its own sake (at least
> not officially). i don't believe ALU has made any sort of
> corporate commitment to the OS, that's true.
>
> the "longevity" of any open source OS is based on the
> community surrounding it; this is as true for Plan 9 as it is
> for Linux and most of the BSDs (and various other things).
> our community is way smaller than those, but my sense is
> we're stronger in many ways than we've been for most of
> the OS's life (we've got less Bell Labs involvement than we
> did for the first half, but a broader range of contributors).
> Plan 9 ships in at least one commercial product, which
> wasn't true for most of its life (i can only think of those
> 2e-based video systems from earlier; anyone else?), and is
> used in some really large research projects by people
> outside the Labs.
>
> i, at least, would be interested to know more about what
> the specific concerns are. that is, is it about availability,
> future evolution, commercial support, or something else?
> anthony
>
>

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[ron minnich]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Uriel<uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:

> Plan 9 is *not* an open source project, it can hardly be called a
> project even: There is no release management, there is no development
> process, there is no way to know what anyone is working on, no way to
> have any idea of what changes and features to expect in the future or
> when, or when any given bug might be fixed, or even a bug database for
> that matter,


This is an interesting statement and should be revised. So let's correct it.

Take that above text and add this, please:
"That is visible to Uriel, or that will ever be visible to Uriel, or
that Uriel has any possibility of influencing, given that Uriel has
burned every last bridge he might have ever had with the Plan 9
developers to the ground.".

> So you are on your own, you can take the code (while the site happens
> to be up, or from a mirror), do whatever you like with it, but that is
> all there is and all anyone can count on.

So, let's revise this one too..

"I, Uriel, taking up Noah Evans offer, will be forking the code base
and releasing an OS called Plan-U. I will provide servers that resolve
all the problems seen with the bell labs server, and I will take on
the task, with my friends, of providing all the things I see lacking
in the current setup. It's much easier to contribute a solution than
complain, and I am not the type who gets perverse joy out of just
complaining and yelling at people on a mailing list. That game is for
losers. Rather, I wish to provide a constructive solution, and I know
that after a few months people will ignore the bell labs site and
flock to mine. It worked for openbsd, and it can work for Plan U. As
part of this effort, I hereby unsubscribe from this list, and am
starting a new one called ufans for my new OS release. Please join me
in this important work. "

There now, wouldn't that be much easier? You already run a bunch of
servers; I think you could pull it off. And it might lower your blood
pressure :-)

You declined Noah's serious offer to take over sources; here's another
chance! Go for ti! You should not assume it would not work.

Ron

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Uriel<uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Plan 9 is *not* an open source project
>

I once attended a talk where a statement was made about open source
projects being defined by their ability to fork in non-destructive
manners as a sort of evolutionary response.  Plan 9's source code is
available, and anyone that thinks they can do a better job is welcome
to fork it, repackage the distribution, mirror it, support it, and so
forth.  People will naturally flock to better solutions.  This is the
very heart of open source.  Conforming to Google's idea of open
source, or the Linux Community's model, or the GNU religion is in no
way essential to open source.  What is essential is that the community
works out what works best on its own and evolves through forking and
merging and different approaches which work best at different times.

Forks are already in place.  Inferno is very much a fork of Plan 9,
Octopus is a fork of Inferno. Brucee has his own fork (or perhaps
forks?) of Inferno.  p9p and 9vx are also forks after a fashion.
These forks often contribute fixes and improvements back to respective
parents, and some times they don't.  The secret plan 9 super secret
society fork is yet another evolution, actually primarily motivated by
bitter, disruptive, and ultimately destructive community members.  All
things are valid, evolution only moves forward with action.  We have
our fork, we are proceeding with it as we best see fit -- that's our
prerogative.  Unhappy?  Restless? Bored?  Go forth and fork -- IMHO,
this is a research operating system, its here to play with, learn and
explore.  If you aren't interested in those things, you'll be
disappointed or worse.

      -eric

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Corey]

On Saturday 18 July 2009 12:29:29 Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
> The secret plan 9 super secret
> society fork is yet another evolution, actually primarily motivated by
> bitter, disruptive, and ultimately destructive community members.
>

Curiosity has just got the best of me.

Can you shed a little more light on this super secret fork?

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Corey<corey@bitworthy.net> wrote:
> On Saturday 18 July 2009 12:29:29 Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
>> The secret plan 9 super secret
>> society fork is yet another evolution, actually primarily motivated by
>> bitter, disruptive, and ultimately destructive community members.
>>
>
> Curiosity has just got the best of me.
>
> Can you shed a little more light on this super secret fork?
>

No.

:)
         -eric

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Eric Van Hensbergen<ericvh@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Corey<corey@bitworthy.net> wrote:
>> On Saturday 18 July 2009 12:29:29 Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
>>> The secret plan 9 super secret
>>> society fork is yet another evolution, actually primarily motivated by
>>> bitter, disruptive, and ultimately destructive community members.
>>>
>>
>> Curiosity has just got the best of me.
>>
>> Can you shed a little more light on this super secret fork?
>>
>
> No.
>
> :)
>         -eric
>
>

Well, I'm sure you can, but if you told us, you'd have to kill us.

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Corey]

On Saturday 18 July 2009 12:50:39 Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Corey<corey@bitworthy.net> wrote:
> > On Saturday 18 July 2009 12:29:29 Eric Van Hensbergen wrote:
> >> The secret plan 9 super secret
> >> society fork is yet another evolution, actually primarily motivated by
> >> bitter, disruptive, and ultimately destructive community members.
> >
> > Curiosity has just got the best of me.
> >
> > Can you shed a little more light on this super secret fork?
>
> No.
>
> :)
>

Ok - well at any rate, it is now publicly known that there is at least one
'super secret' Plan 9 fork in process.


"Paranoia is a disease unto itself, and may I add, the person... standing
next to you... may not be who they appear to be - so take precaution."
  - Primus

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Corey]

On Saturday 18 July 2009 10:59:20 ron minnich wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Uriel<uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> > So you are on your own, you can take the code (while the site happens
> > to be up, or from a mirror), do whatever you like with it, but that is
> > all there is and all anyone can count on.
>
> So, let's revise this one too..
>
> "I, Uriel, taking up Noah Evans offer, will be forking the code base
> and releasing an OS called Plan-U. I will provide servers that resolve
> all the problems seen with the bell labs server, and I will take on
> the task, with my friends, of providing all the things I see lacking
> in the current setup."
>

I sent Uriel a message off-list asking him about this, and he preferred
to answer them in public.

I basically volunteered to help him out, were he to embark on the
effort, because I am also interested in seeing a version of Plan 9
with a less... sterile, clean-room environment; and into an environment
that's a little more open to experimental change which may fall outside
the current sensibilities and needs of the prevailing primary movers and
shakers of the currently existing Plan 9 community; and something
perhaps a bit more closer to a more open and accessible, community
driven development model.

This is not to fault Plan 9 as it exists now, but simply to scratch a different
itch than what appears to be in the fore-front of the current 'official' Plan 9
distribution. Seems like it's something that's been needed for awhile in
order to help prevent "ideological" schisms; but apparently no one's
tried it yet?

I'm much too new here to have any desire whatsoever to contribute to noise
or flames, I respect everyone's positions and opinions equally even where
they differ from my own. Not too mention I'm very new to Plan 9, so I lack
experience.


Cheers

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Iruata Souza]

it is so difficult to 'fork' the project that it took me less than 10
minutes to turn the kernel sources into a hg repository.

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:59 PM, ron minnich<rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Uriel<uriel99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Plan 9 is *not* an open source project, it can hardly be called a
>> project even: There is no release management, there is no development
>> process, there is no way to know what anyone is working on, no way to
>> have any idea of what changes and features to expect in the future or
>> when, or when any given bug might be fixed, or even a bug database for
>> that matter,
>
>
> This is an interesting statement and should be revised. So let's correct it.
>
> Take that above text and add this, please:
> "That is visible to Uriel, or that will ever be visible to Uriel, or
> that Uriel has any possibility of influencing, given that Uriel has
> burned every last bridge he might have ever had with the Plan 9
> developers to the ground.".
>
>> So you are on your own, you can take the code (while the site happens
>> to be up, or from a mirror), do whatever you like with it, but that is
>> all there is and all anyone can count on.
>
> So, let's revise this one too..
>
> "I, Uriel, taking up Noah Evans offer, will be forking the code base
> and releasing an OS called Plan-U. I will provide servers that resolve
> all the problems seen with the bell labs server, and I will take on
> the task, with my friends, of providing all the things I see lacking
> in the current setup. It's much easier to contribute a solution than
> complain, and I am not the type who gets perverse joy out of just
> complaining and yelling at people on a mailing list. That game is for
> losers. Rather, I wish to provide a constructive solution, and I know
> that after a few months people will ignore the bell labs site and
> flock to mine. It worked for openbsd, and it can work for Plan U. As
> part of this effort, I hereby unsubscribe from this list, and am
> starting a new one called ufans for my new OS release. Please join me
> in this important work. "
>
> There now, wouldn't that be much easier? You already run a bunch of
> servers; I think you could pull it off. And it might lower your blood
> pressure :-)
>
> You declined Noah's serious offer to take over sources; here's another
> chance! Go for ti! You should not assume it would not work.
>
> Ron
>
>

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Adriano Verardo]

Anthony Sorace wrote:
> i, at least, would be interested to know more about what
> the specific concerns are. that is, is it about availability,
> future evolution, commercial support, or something else?
> anthony
>
Mainly availability.

In the past I had some difficulties when I suggested to use FreeBSD
instead of Linux,
Unix instead of VMS etc etc in a production environments, because a
largely used
product is considered more reliable. From this point of view, of course.

Support is also an issue

The usual questions are about bug fixes and so on. But these are not
problems
because it's quite easy to prove that the support is good, the system is
stable etc etc.

Instead, can happen that some hardware supported by Plan9 is not supplied
by italian reseller and vice versa. This can (sometimes) be a problem
for the
end user.

Unbelievable but true, a driver (or a patch to a driver or whatever
else) done by an
italian is not considered as good as the stuff from the original site.
It is a psychological problem  I  have  often to  face with.

adriano

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:40:14 +0200
Adriano Verardo <a.verardo@tecmav.com> wrote:

> Unbelievable but true, a driver (or a patch to a driver or whatever
> else) done by an
> italian is not considered as good as the stuff from the original site.
> It is a psychological problem  I  have  often to  face with.

Open-source newbies often display the same problem, & not just Italians at all. ;) It's a widely-promoted attitude that stuff which does not come from The Official Source can't be right. There are some facts behind the view, but overall it's a bad leap of logic. What it is is good for established business.

--
Ethan Grammatikidis

Those who are slower at parsing information must
necessarily be faster at problem-solving.

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[erik quanstrom]

> As a professional user I think that Plan9 could be better than *nix for a
> large class of  industrial - not time critical - applications but in
> Italy nobody use it, except of no more than a dozen of fans. The University doesn't
> know it at all. Of course, this is what I see. I would be happy if the picture were
> different.
>
> Speaking with my clients I see that almost all appreciate Plan9. But,
> even if some of them defined it "fascinating", the common sense is that, without
> guarantees about its longevity, it could be a wrong choice.
>
> How can I reply to this objection ?

coraid sells storage appliances based on plan 9 and employs
people specficly to work on plan 9.  there's also quite
a bit of work that goes on at bell labs with the blue gene
project.  and i'm quite sure there are other serious applications
that i'm not as aware of.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[dorin bumbu]

There are thousands of devices shipped with Microsoft Windows CE prior
to version 4 (.NET). For these devices MS never offered patches even
if these versions had lots of bugs, nor even standard C libraries
(thank God there is wcecompat). And there are lot of projects that
reached 10+ years (with workarounds, of course), and still in
production. I don't think the risk of using Plan 9 is greather than
the risk assumend by those who developed with WCE prior to 4.

Dorin

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Adriano Verardo<a.verardo@tecmav.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> As a professional user I think that Plan9 could be better than *nix for a
> large class of  industrial - not time critical - applications but in Italy
> nobody
> use it, except of no more than a dozen of fans. The University doesn't know
> it at all.
> Of course, this is what I see. I would be happy if the picture were
> different.
>
> Speaking with my clients I see that almost all appreciate Plan9. But, even
> if some
> of them defined it "fascinating", the common sense is that, without
> guarantees about
> its longevity, it could be a wrong choice.
>
> How can I reply to this objection ?
>
> Reading the thread about plan9.bell-lab.com I understand that Bell Labs
> are no more directly committed in the project. Is it correct ?
>
> Adriano
>
>

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[J.R. Mauro]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 2:35 PM, dorin bumbu<bumbudorin@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are thousands of devices shipped with Microsoft Windows CE prior
> to version 4 (.NET). For these devices MS never offered patches even
> if these versions had lots of bugs, nor even standard C libraries
> (thank God there is wcecompat). And there are lot of projects that
> reached 10+ years (with workarounds, of course), and still in
> production. I don't think the risk of using Plan 9 is greather than
> the risk assumend by those who developed with WCE prior to 4.

I was going to say something to that effect -- Plan 9 is by and large
pretty stable, and on the same hardware, even no updates would leave
you with a fairly reliable system.

>
> Dorin
>
> On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Adriano Verardo<a.verardo@tecmav.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> As a professional user I think that Plan9 could be better than *nix for a
>> large class of  industrial - not time critical - applications but in Italy
>> nobody
>> use it, except of no more than a dozen of fans. The University doesn't know
>> it at all.
>> Of course, this is what I see. I would be happy if the picture were
>> different.
>>
>> Speaking with my clients I see that almost all appreciate Plan9. But, even
>> if some
>> of them defined it "fascinating", the common sense is that, without
>> guarantees about
>> its longevity, it could be a wrong choice.
>>
>> How can I reply to this objection ?
>>
>> Reading the thread about plan9.bell-lab.com I understand that Bell Labs
>> are no more directly committed in the project. Is it correct ?
>>
>> Adriano
>>
>>
>
>

Re: [9fans] Question about Plan9 project

[Adriano Verardo]

dorin bumbu wrote:
> There are thousands of devices shipped with Microsoft Windows CE prior
> to version 4 (.NET). For these devices MS never offered patches even
> if these versions had lots of bugs, nor even standard C libraries
> (thank God there is wcecompat). And there are lot of projects that
> reached 10+ years (with workarounds, of course), and still in
> production. I don't think the risk of using Plan 9 is greather than
> the risk assumend by those who developed with WCE prior to 4.
>
>
I absolutely agree. In fact I use whatever I consider good without
taking into account
whether or not it is largely used.

The problem arise when I must  share the decision with clients who are
not skilled
enough to distinguish among market share and real quality.

adriano