Re: [9fans] Vanilla Plan 9 or one of the flavors?

[lucio@proxima.alt.za]

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Very good points, every one of them.  Thanks, Thierry, I could have
not put them half as nicely.

++L

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From: tlaronde@polynum.com
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
Subject: Re: [9fans] Vanilla Plan 9 or one of the flavors?
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2014 18:09:26 +0100
Message-ID: <20140106170926.GA680@polynum.com>

On Mon, Jan 06, 2014 at 05:40:50PM +0100, Aram H?v?rneanu wrote:
>
> 9front exists precisely because the 9front authors considered Plan 9
> closed. Using it as an example of openness is the ultimate in
> hypocrisy.
>

It's easier to correct one whole defined "wrong" direction than to
correct a source code with no direction at all (demonstrated more
than once; for example, for me, with GRASS and TeX: I have managed
to take _alone_ GRASS because I started from the last CERL version,
sending more than 10 years of community "improvements" to /dev/null;
the same applies for TeX: I have not fixed TeXlive...).

As stated more than once, for example by Erik, Plan9 is small. This
means that it is still maintainable i.e. "holding in one's hand".
And I'm still convinced that the future belongs to such a small
system due to a world chaos and a general distrust about the huge
beasts everyone is relying upon at the moment (the hypocritical
equivalent of "closed" source been "open" giga-source: yes, one "could"
read all; except that one will never finish reading it during her
live's length and it is more than easy to write puzzling code...).

PS: how many have had the curiosity to look, for example, of an Intel
NIC specification? Does anyone have any certainty about what such a
peripheral can or could do on its own? I don't know how one can be sure
of any device one has build from minerals by hand... That's good for
someone like me who does nothing "secret", but for people dealing with
critical data why don't they go back to paper alone?

--
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                      http://www.kergis.com/
              http://www.renaissance-francaise.fr/
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