Thank you for the clarification, I was puzzling over similar issues. You could also consider 9vx <http://swtch.com/9vx/> especially if you are tempted to try running under Qemu or some other virtualised environment. Although I'm only at the exploratory stage, I find 9vx more useful than 9front.
I also use the Raspberry Pi image <http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/contrib/miller/9pi.img.gz> which is surprisingly easy to install and use. I found it easier to get going than Bell Labs release on various old i386 systems. On 19 December 2014 at 02:46, David du Colombier <0in...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > 1) How often does Bell Lab's version change? How often/well > > do patches from 9legacy enter BL's version? Some numbers? > > There used to be changes on sources almost every day, > up to March 2014. Now the latest change is from September 17. > > Most of the 9legacy changes where included into Plan 9. > Unfortunately, Plan 9 is now in a pretty frozen state. > > > 2) How do 9atom and 9legacy notice that there has been > > a change in BL? (I'd guess that 9legacy could notice > > immediately, but ...) How is it with 9atom? > > I'll speak for 9legacy. Most of the patches are automatically > applied on the latest Plan 9 CD image on a regular basis. > > When a patch doesn't apply anymore, I fix it. > When a patch has already been applied, I remove it. > > > 3) How is updating supposed to work in case of 9atom > > and 9legacy (as compared to BL's replica) I.e., when > > I decide to use either 9atom or 9legacy and at some > > point there is some change in them, will I / can I > > easily notice and follow? > > 9legacy is really just a set of patches available on > top on Plan 9. It's not a full distribution like 9atom > or 9front. > > I didn't want to run my own replica server, having > to keep the whole repository synchronized with Plan 9. > > Instead, I chose to simply provide a list of patches > that any Plan 9 user might find useful and install > on its machine. > > If you choose to install from a 9legacy CD image, you > will get updates from the /n/sources replica server. > > That said, now that Plan 9 is not as actively maintained > as it used to be, 9legacy might move to his own > full distribution. > > > 5) I am puzzled about licences. At one point I almost > > thought that the software is actually BSD-like > > (i.e. you can do almost whatever, no copyleft, > > Lucent Public License Version 1.02). Now I read: > > > > In February 2014 the University of California, Berkeley, has been > > authorised by the current Plan 9 copyright holder – Alcatel-Lucent > > – to release all Plan 9 software previously governed by the Lucent > > Public License, Version 1.02 under the GNU General Public License, > > Version 2 > > > > so the mentioned univesity will offer it under GPL, which is viral > > (is copyleft). That surprises me... > > Plan 9 is currently available under LPL 1.02 (/n/sources) > or GPLv2 (https://github.com/brho/plan9). > > Unfortunately, this is a complicated story. Ron could tell you > more about this. Alcatel-Lucent refused to distribute Plan 9 > under a more liberal licence than GPLv2. > > -- > David du Colombier > >
