Bottomline is this: People would never use software like that. The ones who do are already familiar with Plan 9 and weighted pros and cons years ago. 99,9% of the potential users are already on this mailing list and watched this exact same exchange a dozen times.
2013/12/15 Blake McBride <bl...@mcbride.name> > I, respectfully, disagree. The end purpose of any OS, platform, or > program is to perform some sort of function. That end function is called > an app. An app can be targeted at a programmer or a dumb user. The > underlying environment (including tools) determines the available > facilities a programmer has in order to construct said app. Unix brings > far, far better facilities for the programmer than does Window for the > construction and operation of an app. The new ideas embodied in Plan-9 > bring considerable enhancements to such an environment. > > If I am not going to build an app of some sort or another, what is the > value of Plan-9? Am I just going to spend all day playing with the cool > ideas with no end or purpose in mind? > > Blake > > > > On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Bence Fábián <beg...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> If bringing Plan 9 to the masses will bring forth stuff like C++ and >> Java, I will fight against it till my dying breath. >> >> Jokes aside. People don't want to use computers. People want to use apps. >> Noone will like Plan 9. Where you have to read manuals. They hate that. If >> you like Plan 9, and there's a usecase for it, use it. And write device >> drivers. That is much more helpful than trying to convince LKML folks that >> they need userlevel namespaces. People already tried this. >> >> >> 2013/12/15 Blake McBride <bl...@mcbride.name> >> >>> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 5:55 AM, trebol <trebol55...@aol.com> wrote: >>> >>>> ..... The lack of a >>>> web browser capable of deal with today's madness and the portability >>>> limitation of ape (at least for a ignorant like me) forcesme to deal >>>> with other OS I have to install and maintaining, so the simplicity and >>>> cleanness I like so much of plan9 become useless. Thanks to Russ Cox >>>> for P9P! >>> >>> .... >>>> >>> >>> This is a great segue into a point I was hoping to make. I read Rob >>> Pike's comments at: >>> >>> http://rob.pike.usesthis.com/ >>> >>> and it really got me thinking. What a great idea he talked about! I >>> think this may be at the heart of the Plan-9 idea. >>> >>> Mind-share and markets rarely move with sense or logic. The better >>> approach rarely wins. It is more a matter of critical mass of mind-share. >>> Linux, for a lot of really good reasons, has that mind-share (in the >>> technical arena). (Of course Windows has much more mind-share do largely >>> to the fact that most users are non-technical and don't understand the >>> difference - not to mention Microsoft's bullying of the market...) >>> >>> I think Plan-9 suffered from two big issues. The first was lack of >>> mind-share (crowd acceptance). It is very hard to compete with Windows & >>> Linux. The second was lack of support for a huge need - a fully functional >>> browser. >>> >>> In spite of some really great ideas, I think we'd all agree that Plan-9 >>> has no real future. On the other hand, I believe that some of the best >>> ideas Plan-9 brings us can and should be a part of the future. I think the >>> best, most practical way to bring those ideas to wide-spread use and >>> availability is to implement those ideas in the Linux kernel. I understand >>> that, since Linux is not Plan-9, there would be compromises and >>> limitations, but it would be a huge step in the right direction. Plan-9 >>> proved those ideas in an ideal environment. Just like what Smalltalk did >>> to the world - creating C++, Java, the mouse, etc., Plan-9 can bring its >>> ideas to the mainstream through additions and improvements to existing >>> technology like Linux. >>> >>> Just some thoughts. >>> >>> Blake McBride >>> >>> >>> >> >
