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by mercurial
4229 days ago
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It's an interesting take, but that's not really how software works. Look at Plan9. It isn't POSIX compliant, but it does a lot of things much better than traditional Unix (or nowadays Linux, for that matter). Traditional Unix is not the philosopher's stone. There are plenty of good things about it, but it also comes with a number of dubious design decisions or what is now irrelevant cruft (why are we leaving with code replicating the behaviour of obsolete hardware in our terminal emulators?). It's not so much the actual implementation that is important, it is the "good parts" of its philosophy that we need to keep. |
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The most important elements to consider about Plan9 are these:
1. Plan9 wasn't Unix (nor was it Linux). It was its own OS, it was absolutely informed by Unix, and tried to learn from mistakes practiced in Unix. Because it wasn't Unix it provided for an independent test bed in which these ideas could be explored without disrupting a large established installed base and user community. And that is a key benefit of branched development. All of these I consider positives of Plan9.
2. It was hampered by an overbearing corporate control and licensing model. It was an ugly stepchild of AT&T's, under a proprietary license. The fact that it was under development kept it from being widely deployed (among other factors), the fact that it had a restricted license meant that other possible collaborators couldn't get involved.
When Linux emerged in the early 1990s, it had a lot of problems -- it was far from the best or most obvious Unix alternative out there (look up ESR's PC Unix guides from that era). But in a world of large proprietary Unicies priced far out of the hobbyist's range, a handful of small PC ports of varying quality, and BSD which was embroiled in its lawsuit with AT&T (speaking of Plan9), Linux was unencumbered, free, and (pretty quickly) available under the GPL. That gave it the critical mass to develop. As with Plan9, it was its own OS, providing a testbed environment for development, but also allowing stable cuts to be made for use in specific deployments as it reached sufficient states of readiness.
Which is to say: the community and development dynamics mattered a lot.
I'm seeing a far more troubled path for Systemd in this regard.
Also of note: in the Debian init system debate, a specific concern raised against upstart, one of the init alternatives, was its own requirement of a developer license grant to Canonical, which was seen as a strong demerit against upstart. As with Plan9, exercising too much proprietary control may well have cost Canonical critical votes in the Debian decision.