[calvin_]

are you sure you even get Plan 9? the point is to avoid bloatmonsters like LO and most browsers, with smaller alternatives that work well with the team of the core utilities.

drivers are a given though. i'm not sure what their philosophy on virtualization is though.

[freehunter]

I don't think it's too unreasonable to wish for a Plan9 that could be usable on the desktop. Why let such a cool system go to waste?

[anth]

It is unreasonable to think that a system that is not well-suited to desktop use is therefore "going to waste". The features that make something good for supercomputers, appliances, network infrastructure, embedded devices, and so on, are all fairly distinct from what makes a system good on a desktop.

A system could, in theory, be both (although you end up with a least-common-denominator situation), but they are separate.

[p9idf]

It's completely unreasonable. Why would someone want to waste a bunch of their time and money writing word processors and web browsers to win a pointless popularity contest? What would a word processor or web browser on Plan 9 enable you to do that you can't do already on Windows? Mass appeal is not the only way to evaluate the merits of a computer operating system, and Plan 9 isn't going to go to waste because it wasn't the most popular way to watch Youtube videos and write TPS reports.

[angersock]

writing word processors and web browsers to win a pointless popularity contest

Get off your high horse.

Nobody will give two shits about your toy operating system if it consistently fails to be useful for day-to-day work.

(Which is a shame, because P9 is quite cool.)

[zanny]

Here is an alternate interpretation:

the model of plan9 lends itself to a radically different way to interact with pretty much everything. For a plan9-esque web browser, each site - nay, each element of a page - could be virtual files in an fs graph, and as you access pages and content you pull down the local graph into regional cache, and other 9P enabled systems see in your visible overlay that cache set.

You end up with a distributed web without needing low level distributed meshnets replacing old IP tech, because 9P on top does all the work.

Or word processing, the working draft is its own virtual file system with some organization, and collaborative editing is just working on the same 9P Mount, and each hostname can identify the editor.

That might be what someone means by "wheres my web browser?" because plan9 is meant to be an experiment - if the successor to the http / html web comes from anywhere, the best replacement (but probably not the most popular) will come out of radical new ideas like what plan9 regularly tries.

[yellowapple]

Abaco (the web browser shipped with Plan 9) already does what you're suggesting, using webfs and an HTML parsing library.

It might be possible to replace that parsing library with a version of Webkit or Gecko ported to Plan 9 in order to achieve "modern" web standards support while sticking to 9P and such for the actual network portion of web browsing.

[p9idf]

This discussion is becoming a little uncivil, but I'll try to stay on-track.

"Nobody will [care] about your [...] operating system if it consistently fails to be useful for day-to-day work."

Nobody except those who already find it useful for their day-to-day work, some of whom have already explained the system's utility to them in this thread. Only if you think popularity is the only way to judge the utility of a computer operating system can you so easily dismiss such a large and influential body of work.

I posed a question earlier which you didn't address, and if you think chasing after mass appeal isn't pointless you should have an answer for: What would a word processor or web browser on Plan 9 (which everyone here seems to agree is cool) enable you to do that you can't already do elsewhere?

[smorrow]

You're the only one that thinks anyone is talking about popularity. The fact is that if you had something similar to a word processor (for example) natively on Plan 9, you'd be able to read and write rich text, and still have it be in the idiom of Plan 9, the plumber, chords, tools, etc. and not have to switch over to the other OS.

It's totally possible to have a (for this example) word processor without having to have icons, nested menus, clippy, bloat, or whatever it is that you're objecting to.

[p9idf]

I'm not objecting to bloat or Clippies or any of that other stuff. I'm objecting to this frame of mind that people have which laments the lack of web browsers, has no interest or intent to write one themselves, but then wonders why no one has spontaneously written one for them free of charge, and then decides Plan 9 is a waste or non-starter on account of it. I don't mind if someone decides Plan 9 sucks† or isn't right for them, but the logic some people in this thread have used to arrive at that conclusion is unreasonable. There's no money in it, and the marginal utility of a word processor on Plan 9 over a word processor on Windows is evidently negligible enough that no one has taken a personal interest in writing one for themselves.

All of the features fantasized about in this thread you could write yourself if you wanted to and had the time and money. If the person lamenting the lack of a spreadsheet program lacks either the time or money or interest to write it, it shouldn't be much surprise that everyone else lacks them too. It is unreasonable to dismiss a system because no uncommonly charitable programmer has donated their time to write programs that they don't personally need or get paid for. Toilets are valuable enough that people pay plumbers to put them in their houses so they don't have to piss on their mattresses, but apparently no one can think of anything valuable enough about a Plan 9 word processor that they would be willing to do anything that would make it a reality.

Really none of this is specific to Plan 9 or even to computers. Maybe I should have bit my tongue, rolled my eyes, and kept quiet like I normally do.

† It does.

[0xdeadbeefbabe]

Chasing mass appeal has a point because what is popular is not as useful as it could be. I see people adapting themselves to the computer instead of adapting the computer to themselves or to their task. For example, a teenager who crashes the car because his or her eyes and fingers were attending to his or her "smart" phone.

[angersock]

I could browse the web or write documents without leaving my Plan9 system.

It's somewhat like, "What would peeing in the bathroom offer you that you can't already do elsewhere, e.g. the kitchen?"

[SixSigma]

Except I know lots of people who use plan9 for their day to day work. Including watching youtube videos and doing word processing.

[freehunter]

>win a pointless popularity contest

Who said anything about winning a popularity contest? I just want to use a cool OS. Linux hasn't won any desktop popularity contests but it's still possible for average people to use it for day to day work.

>What would a word processor or web browser on Plan 9 enable you to do that you can't do already on Windows?

Do you even know what Plan 9 is? If you did, you wouldn't be asking this question.

Oh, I just read your HN profile. Sorry, I didn't realize I was talking to a troll.

[frozenport]

are you sure you even get how a PC works? If if it can't browse the web, its junk.

[ccrush]

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I only hope one day get the joy of understanding the roots of UNIX, the intention of Plan 9/Inferno, and the places it can be used outside of the PC world. I believe their major achievement is hardly the user interface or the driver support. Those are arcane measures of usefulness by today's standards. The main point of Plan 9/Inferno is not about where it runs at all. The point is that wherever it runs, the communication between networked resources is no longer a matter of each device being an island onto itself. It is designed from the ground to allow for a mesh of storage, computation, display, and other devices. The target audience is not your regular PC user just yet. I think the late Dennis Ritchie, of UNIX and C fame, said that Plan 9, much like UNIX, will not be fully appreciated for another 20 to 30 years.

[frozenport]

Plan9 won't take off until it can run software. But I find it amusing that at night I got +8 votes but the following day I got -4.

[valarauca1]

This is stupid. Bemoaning that a research project is junk because the average consumer can't use it misses the point of a research project. A lot of scientific and research equipment can't be used by the average Joe, and has very little implication on their lives.

The reason it was posted here is because in Computer Science more then any other field the line between professional and research is blurred more then ever.