There have been many direct responses to my posts, every one of them has a number of good points - even when I disagree with some of them; and (as is natural and expected) a number of misunderstandings as well.
I can't respond to them all without spamming the list, so I'll refrain (wouldn't have the time to adequately respond to everyone anyhow). Additionally, it's all too easy for the _holistic_ context of what I'm trying to express to become entirely vaporised and lost to the void if I foolishly chase after every piece of flotsam and jetsam. I'm hoping my response to Erik's email helps clarify my position: On Saturday 17 April 2010 07:00:57 erik quanstrom wrote: > > It's imperative that the current official Plan 9 sources and distro > > remain undisturbed. > > okay. it may not be your intention, but now you're trolling. > you complained that the official sources were stagnant in > your opening salvo. now you're arguing the opposite. hard > to take this completely seriously. > I didn't say that the official sources were stagnant. At any rate, that certainly was not my intended message. Regardless, even if the sources _were_ stagnant... and even if Plan 9 proper was used professionally by an even _smaller_ number of developers, it would still need to continue in its own idiom without disruption. Why? Nemo says it well in his book: "The system is easy to use for programmers, and is an excellent example of a high-quality system design and software development. Studying its code reveals how simplicity can be more effective by contortions made by other systems." I wasn't joking when I said it was imperative that Plan 9 continues as it always has. And this is the reason why I'm using the phrase "Plan X", as a pointer used to reference any potential alternative Plan 9 based distro... to avoid the conflict resulting from folks thinking there's any intent to pollute/dilute Plan 9 proper. (Regarding "Plan X" - it goes something like this: It's impossible to talk about Plan X without talking about Plan 9 - but talking about "Plan 9" does not always mean to imply "Plan 9 'proper', the official distribution". Unfortunately, "Plan 9" is inherently ambiguous... thus my use of "Plan X".) > > * radical frugal simplicity throughout the entire system > > i think you have the ideology wrong. from simplicity springs > forth 9p, etc. without the frugal design none of the people who > use plan 9/inferno professionally would have any interest in plan 9. > simplicity is the key. > I keep saying: Plan 9 shouldn't be affected by any given potential expression or discussion of a "Plan X". Plan 9 will not lose any simplicity. Case in point: Inferno (an example of a "Plan X" in actual existence) did not in any way threaten or obviate Plan 9. > > * a stance against POSIX and other standards > > what's your justification for this opinion? plan 9 supports > many standards. off the top of my head: icmp, bootp (pxe), > dhcp, ip, udp, tcp, smtp, http, ftp, imap4, pop, dns, etc. > Those are a different class of standards. Which showcases the Plan 9 bias towards systems programming: highly critical towards many/all platform/language standards, unconcerned/laissez faire towards networking standards. Plan 9 chose not to fight any network protocol standards (IL not withstanding), but it _did_ choose to fight the POSIX/C99 et. al battle. I theorize that there's multiple niches for various Plan 9 based operating systems where the antagonism towards programming language standards and C dialects, among other things, is inappropriate and/or unsuitable - or merely unnecessary. The above theory does not in any way suggest that the current official Plan 9 customs and idioms are inferior/inadequate or inefficient or illogical or unsound... etc. etc.. Pointing out the benefits and beauties of one thing does not somehow detract from the benefits and beauties of another. > surely you don't mean that the plan 9 community should accept > (or implement) all languages. > Again, I'm not talking about Plan 9. However, a "Plan X" distribution might very well have good reason to want to internally support and maintain a native fork of one or more specific languages and libraries and/or toolkits, in order to suit the goals and purposes of that particular distribution. > > * a strong bias towards a particular form of user interaction with the > > system (i.e. acme, rio, etc) > > suggest something better. if it doesn't exist, then implement it. > convince people that you're ideas are better. > What constitutes "better" is (often) far too subjective on personal perspectives and experiences, and far too dependent on the intended use-cases of a project. There's no way in hell I'm going to promote any ideas I might have regarding "Plan X", as being better than the current 9fans rendition of the Plan 9 status quo. The idea is not to _change_ Plan 9 proper, or its culture. The idea is to consider whether the possibility of simply creating an _additional_ space - for collaborating on and experimenting with alternate expressions of the Plan 9 operating system[1] - is interesting to anyone. _If_ the interest is there (even if from only a couple people), the next step is to figure out how best to stake out this additional new space. Also, it's important to stress: if this additional new space actually emerges (via whatever means, and through the efforts of whichever people), it is critical that it materializes under generally good (or at least neutral) terms. [1] - once again, to make clear: "Plan X" := "any, and all, potential alternate expressions of the Plan 9 operating system" (Could be alternately phrased, for example, as: Plan * or Plan ? , etc.) Peace
