Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
hey Kenji, deep learning is another interest of mine too. hardware support is a big deal for that... some kind of support for GPUs would be nice. people have discussed that for years... hardware drivers are difficult and important to do correctly! python is used a lot for some of the available things... tensorflow is a really nice approach for custom networks, even making custom layers, etc. I haven't seen any examples but it would be interesting to think about that in C. it might end up being easier to write something like that in C than port everything for something like tensorflow... I did port a somewhat outdated C library: https://github.com/echoline/fann it isn't nearly as customizable as tensorflow though. I always really liked the "XCPU" and drawterm type ideas of using other OSes for their existing strengths along with Plan 9. maybe drawterm could have a GPU device driver or something... that being said I have sometimes found it ends up surprisingly easier doing it all on Plan 9... - Eli On Sat, Aug 21, 2021 at 7:48 PM wrote: > > I have ended up using 9front more and more, obviously. 9front was > > started specifically to address the fact that Plan 9 from Bell Labs > > didn't run on most computers... > > me, too. > > 9front have many kinds of device drivers. If we live on other OSs than > plan9, > we cannot do anything other than those device drivers. > > However, if we consider it more deep, we don't need not so much > kinds of running terminals. We need only one cpu/auth/file server machine > and many of drawterms, or as Russ is doing plan9port. > > If we consider it like this, we should discuss what kinds of computer work > we want. I want to run deep learning on plan9... If so, we need 64 bit > kernel for cpu server, and python > > Kenji > -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mdf830ebc446636d4ca37b479 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> I have ended up using 9front more and more, obviously. 9front was > started specifically to address the fact that Plan 9 from Bell Labs > didn't run on most computers... me, too. 9front have many kinds of device drivers. If we live on other OSs than plan9, we cannot do anything other than those device drivers. However, if we consider it more deep, we don't need not so much kinds of running terminals. We need only one cpu/auth/file server machine and many of drawterms, or as Russ is doing plan9port. If we consider it like this, we should discuss what kinds of computer work we want. I want to run deep learning on plan9... If so, we need 64 bit kernel for cpu server, and python Kenji -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M7f5dc23b2cc11ed09b8c3102 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Quoth k...@a-b.xyz: > > I'd like to see people communicate and exchange ideas and/or code more > effectively but this will always remain in the hands of individuals > who decide how to socialise and what to work on. > I try to keep an eye open, and integrate patches that make sense. I've also committed patches when others did the same (eg, plan9front acme has gotten many of the changes from plan9port, though not all) -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M5f5900afb2db59d9e19a9294 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
My e-mail client decided to mark this thread as read. I am glad it did. -- Aram Hăvărneanu -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M19d5cd1a3c6215f93b235b39 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: Git & Conventional Browsers (Was Re: [9fans] Software philosophy)
Quoth un...@cpan.org: > Do you mean working on git repos that > use symbolic links Those also work on git9, though modifying the symlinks is not allowed. Symlinks are treated as copies. See the netsurf port for an example of this in practice. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T4f2bf7206a55a388-M804b00fa5d8931c6401a65b9 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Git & Conventional Browsers (Was Re: [9fans] Software philosophy)
Quoth Lucio De Re : > A transparent history of decisions in this matter would prevent losing > any interesting proposals - yes, we need better than Git, but Git is > painfully "enough" to start with, even if as I get more familiar with > Git I'm starting to believe, hopefully wrongly, that Plan 9 may have > to bend towards supporting symbolic links to deal with it if it is > going to be a long run - and will raise a chuckle or two when future > archeologists come across it. I doubt they'll be able to do any more > than raise eyebrows when they try that with Linux. Ori has developed git9--which I think is compatible with 9legacy when a certain patch is applied (I think it's related to rc). I don't understand what you mean by it would require supporting symbolic links in order to deal with it (git). Do you mean working on git repos that use symbolic links, not the many git repos that already exist for Plan 9-ish software? > One last, not quite related matter: Plan 9 seems limited never to > provide a conventional browsing experience for its audience. What does > that actually say about Plan 9's future? Opossum and netsurf are two browsers on Plan 9 that can provide a conventional browsing experience, from what I've seen. They're not nearly as far along and polished as Chrome/Firefox, but it's a start. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T4f2bf7206a55a388-Mded82ec1613ca89af7a5598b Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
some of it for me is just nostalgia. there was always someone talking about "the world these days" though, I have to admit. ignorance sucks too but noticing anything is excruciatingly painful! I also had a vested interest in submitting patches "upstream" to see what I could learn from trying to do it. I didn't get very far with it and started to feel like I was just making a mess. I often feel that way with my coding. if anyone understood my feelings of being misunderstood, not that I ever put any effort into knowing who any of you are, it did seem boomers made all this. I'm on the fence about the moon thing though, I don't see any particular reason we should believe in any lights in the night sky or other ridiculousness. On Thu, Aug 19, 2021, 4:47 AM hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: > > We have beef with the One Plan 9 idea. Or at least the all people I have > > talked to about this topic. > > personally i have no beef with it. i'd be happy for everybody to > upgrade to 9front. > it's all open-source for a reason, would be a shame if nobody believes > in their own fork... -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Me9f5351c0353c26fe7ae4eea Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> We have beef with the One Plan 9 idea. Or at least the all people I have > talked to about this topic. personally i have no beef with it. i'd be happy for everybody to upgrade to 9front. it's all open-source for a reason, would be a shame if nobody believes in their own fork... -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mc29ad0e3a0dda2fc348d6dde Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
19.08.2021 12:56:02 k...@a-b.xyz: Quoth Lucio De Re : What seems to be harped upon by the vocal defenders of 9front, however, is this fictional idea that there is another community, let's call them "9legacy", that is attempting to subvert 9front's efforts to gain some kind of recognition in the bigger picture. The core 9front contributors and most everyone else who commented on this situation in 9front's super secret inner circles simply find it socially awkward that 9front isn't mentioned. Some may read more of the signal. Otherwise 9front folks couldn't care less about being recognized by a website. Nothing would change or improve if that happened. The only ones who objectively suffer in the current situation is newcomers who aren't properly informed by a website on the options they have if they want to run a "Plan 9". Basically this. P9f just doesn't mention 9front, and that should change imo, to better reflect the whole Plan 9 ecosystem. The same way p9p should be mentioned (or is it?) I personally don't see an issue with 9front and 9legacy continuing to be their own things. Different people have different ideas for what they want to make out of their Plan 9 and sometimes their ideas are simply incompatible. I'd like to see people communicate and exchange ideas and/or code more effectively but this will always remain in the hands of individuals who decide how to socialise and what to work on. 100% my opinion. Don't make a canonical 1P9, just let people explore their ideas. Like, even 9gridchan had it's own "fork", if you want to call it like that. sirjofri -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Md35909f62414b2dc634f2a8f Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Quoth Lucio De Re : > What seems to be harped upon by the vocal defenders of 9front, > however, is this fictional idea that there is another community, let's > call them "9legacy", that is attempting to subvert 9front's efforts to > gain some kind of recognition in the bigger picture. The core 9front contributors and most everyone else who commented on this situation in 9front's super secret inner circles simply find it socially awkward that 9front isn't mentioned. Some may read more of the signal. Otherwise 9front folks couldn't care less about being recognized by a website. Nothing would change or improve if that happened. The only ones who objectively suffer in the current situation is newcomers who aren't properly informed by a website on the options they have if they want to run a "Plan 9". I personally don't see an issue with 9front and 9legacy continuing to be their own things. Different people have different ideas for what they want to make out of their Plan 9 and sometimes their ideas are simply incompatible. I'd like to see people communicate and exchange ideas and/or code more effectively but this will always remain in the hands of individuals who decide how to socialise and what to work on. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mc4e94b26abc53ada87addb87 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> On Aug 19, 2021, at 7:34 AM, Lucio De Re wrote: > > It is the pragmatic end of the Plan 9 spectrum, courtesy of Cinap who > clearly would be a Torvalds if Plan 9 had gained the traction of > Linux. > Oh please. You think Cinap is some sort of charismatic demogogue of 9front? Yeah… he’s not like that. In fact, 9front development is highly decentralized in authority and everyone seems to spot, review, critique, and gatekeep each other, rather than any person having a single final say. Perhaps I haven’t been with the community long enough to have seen any drag-out, knock-down fights that require a code-daddy [if any of those ever took place, I don’t know], but no, you really have a strange vision of what is going on at 9front. -pixelheresy -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Md9eb7bfcec9641d61110a0e1 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
>> 3) the p9f website promotes links to the Plan 9 archive software (V1-V4), >> 9legacy as "Plan 9 with many useful patches", the RPi version and other >> Plan 9 resources. 9front is _never_ mentioned at all. It seems like they >> don't consider 9front as a Plan 9 system at all. >> > That is true and only P9F can address that issue. Which does rather > throw a spanner in Keith's complaints about me, because his claim is > that P9F want to assimilate and dominate 9front, based on a very thin > claim from me that I would be happier in a 1P9 universe. But let's not > ad hominem unnecessarily. Oh Lucio… I didn’t say that. You are either skimming to make arguments against what you *think* I said, or just being disingenuous to muddle my position. I didn’t say P9F was planning on it. You suggested it in your original response to Demitrius. I joked about blessing 9front as official, to point out how divisive and absurd it would be for a non-elected governing body to impose anything on an Open Source community and *then* pointed out how the P9F’s mission materials is about promoting and not regulating. I never said the P9F specifically wanted to reign in 9front as a recalcitrant child, rather that some community members here [you included, but a few other vocal ones] seem insistent that “good” features and fixes in 9front be demanded as patches from 9front devs to a project they do not participate in. Cinap and others have in fact made patches this here and there, but the idea the tribute is demanded for audience is absurd. Much like your motorcycle metaphor, there are ways to build in consistency and compatibility besides appeals to authority. > What seems to be harped upon by the vocal defenders of 9front, > however, is this fictional idea that there is another community, let's > call them "9legacy", that is attempting to subvert 9front's efforts to > gain some kind of recognition in the bigger picture. I know no one > whose preference, like mine, is to stick closer to the 9legacy release > of Plan 9, who in some way wants to reduce the value of 9front. Just > as OP points out, cooperation between David and Cinap and colleagues > has been cordial, if occasionally confrontational, for many, many > years. So Hiro and Kurt and others can be scratchy and no doubt so can > I, I don't think any of us have done any permanent damage to the 9fans > or the narrower 9front community. I think this may be a bit of a straw man argument, at least in terms of myself, peers I have spoken to in the 9front community, 9gridchan folks, etc. It is less 9front vs 9legacy. My position is more 9front & 9legacy coexisting vs a vocal minority who actively pepper messages with with rhetoric supporting a theoretical [forced] merger or culling of 9front in favor of a more authentic/pure version. As I said in my email to Eli, it is less a dichotomy between factions as a position where people in both 9front and 9legacy [and p9p users, etc. etc.] would happily see a positive mutual community of peers all congregating in 9fans living in cooperation and harmony vs. those who demand that there be some authority to legitimize one thing and force others to come to heel or leave. Making “P.S.” call outs to garner support for 1P9 (especially by means of appeal to external authority) forces me to speak up. Simple as that. The 9fans community knows me a bit less [since I mostly ready and enjoy discussions], but 9front/9grid/other OSS communities kind of know me as a positive, easy going, get along with everyone kind of guy. Call it “Papa Bear” instincts as a dad, or because I have been in the midst of other OSS drama over the years [and occasionally have seen what were tantamount to hostile, undemocratic takeovers of software projects], I kind of feel like I need to protect everyone’s little garden. > So what I'm saying is that 9fans exists, it IS a community; 9front > (the OS) has its own community that overlaps in part with 9fans; > 9legacy (the code) has users, individuals, mostly, who may ignore > 9front, but cannot possibly be accused in any real sense of > participating in a counter-9front conspiracy. If there is any evidence > to the contrary, I'd like to see it. I am not seeing it as a conspiracy [as I said in the prior, not as malice either]. You and several others seem to feel that “Plan 9” as an OS becomes stronger through editorialization by means of a single vision [whether person or committee]. Since P9F has been announced, some people are expressing a “need” for a single, definitive Plan 9 [post V4 in January, 2015]. You probably think that is the best. You and others advocating for it are the heroes of your story… of your vision. Conversely, quite a lot of people [not ironically including most 9front devs] don’t want authority. They kind of like having the Plan 9 flavor they use. I mean Jeanne is cool [I like 9front better] and kind of like the switch to markdown and some minor
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
19.08.2021 11:51:48 hiro <23h...@gmail.com>: Thank you for raising them. As I said up front, I am not a P9F member of any kind. But I know that its intentions are far less nefarious than of those who wittingly ascribe nefarious intentions to them. Can you prove that? what makes you competent to know without being a p9f member? Again, 9front has an "inside", get it to address with P9F their and your reservations. If they don't respond, then you and other 9fronters can bring evidence of ill intentions to this forum. Sadly that's not how it works. Until they specifically admit it, they have every right to claim they just had no time to act on behalf of unimportant pet projects. Of course over a longer time, such a claim becomes less and less believable... If their website source was available online I would happily send them a patch. ... and that says me, who always needs to figure put how to create and apply patches. sirjofri -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M54f582a8419e4702524b90f3 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> Thank you for raising them. As I said up front, I am not a P9F member > of any kind. But I know that its intentions are far less nefarious > than of those who wittingly ascribe nefarious intentions to them. Can you prove that? what makes you competent to know without being a p9f member? > Again, 9front has an "inside", get it to address with P9F their and > your reservations. If they don't respond, then you and other 9fronters > can bring evidence of ill intentions to this forum. Sadly that's not how it works. Until they specifically admit it, they have every right to claim they just had no time to act on behalf of unimportant pet projects. Of course over a longer time, such a claim becomes less and less believable... -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M60bf55a5133002d55d4643db Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
... > would it not be better if the 9front community chose > to create a wikipedia entry for themselves? That said, if there was a > conspiracy, would the conspirators not have already wiped out 9front > from a wikipedia page over which they presumably have some level of > authority? the groups that are able to hold "power" over a wikipedia page are not easy to define, there's no traditional form of authority there. for example my IP is banned from editing wikipedia. it's impossible for the 9front community to play the necessary political games to maintain our own wikipedia website. it's much easier to just delete the 9front wikipedia entry and instead point to our own more authoritative non-wikipedia wiki. such efforts regularly get sabotaged by (well-meaning?) non-9front-related wikipedians. Their COC is probably not compatible to our COQ either ;) -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Maad596a97d7cd0fcd83f2410 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
19.08.2021 11:29:29 hiro <23h...@gmail.com>: anymore. Other dubious sources can be found on the 9front /who/ site about p9f, where they apparently stole resources from 9front/cat-v pages. Very suspicious somehow. that's because they lost the bell-labs server. else they could have "stolen" it from their own machines. we mirrored all the documents in fear that the data on that web server would get lost some day, and it seems we were right. I want to excuse myself here for the word "stole". I should have written it differently or at least put it in quotes. The mentioned resources were original Plan 9 resources afaik (or even obviously). I'm glad cat-v/9front was able to keep them stored for future generations. It's just not a good light having documents on a website with the title of cat-v/9front origin while not mentioning that part of the community at all. sirjofri -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mffbb6faea607aae13c39db35 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> anymore. Other dubious sources can be found on the 9front /who/ site > about p9f, where they apparently stole resources from 9front/cat-v pages. > Very suspicious somehow. that's because they lost the bell-labs server. else they could have "stolen" it from their own machines. we mirrored all the documents in fear that the data on that web server would get lost some day, and it seems we were right. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M04dee619eb28a80a33ec48cc Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
On 8/19/21, sirjofri wrote: > Hello dear community, > > I've read through many things in this thread and just want to add some > two cents in a list format: > > 1) p9f (to my knowledge) never said anything about The One Plan 9. This > was afaik the idea of some other community member, and I never heard any > statement by p9f about that. > Indeed correct. My suggestion started with a lobbying idea for useful concepts such as the addition of Oauth2 to factotum so that there could be some momentum rather than spurious hope for interest to incorporate "core" changes into whatever P9F consider their target OS. I am not a member of P9F, when I checked the membership I assumed that my participation as more than a spectator would not be welcome - personal reasons. So instead i thought that as a lobbyist within a framework, I could expect to have a less subjectively negative value, period. > 2) In fact, p9f is pretty silent, not only these days. This could be a > good sign, as they let community be what they are, only occasionally > taking part in it. > P9F owes no one anything. Some resources seem to have moved under their umbrella, contributed voluntarily. The licence change has been an important step forward. Again, approaching P9F in a public forum may or may not have a more positive impact. Like it or not, the foundation is operated by humans and historically active Plan 9 "fans" have behaved controversially. Not all, but a lot. > 3) the p9f website promotes links to the Plan 9 archive software (V1-V4), > 9legacy as "Plan 9 with many useful patches", the RPi version and other > Plan 9 resources. 9front is _never_ mentioned at all. It seems like they > don't consider 9front as a Plan 9 system at all. > That is true and only P9F can address that issue. Which does rather throw a spanner in Keith's complaints about me, because his claim is that P9F want to assimilate and dominate 9front, based on a very thin claim from me that I would be happier in a 1P9 universe. But let's not ad hominem unnecessarily. Incidentally, all contributions to 9legacy and/or mentioned as P9F resources are either inherited from Nokia (have I got that right?) or from individual members of P9F. As an afterthought, is it not obvious that 9front may be able to get a seat at the table if they contributed in a similar way? Is that possible? Has such an approach already been turned down? What do we know? > I don't know why, it's possible they just don't want it to exist or they > don't know how to see it. It just hurts me personally as a community > person who uses 9front and not the original Plan 9. And it's confusing. > Am I even a Plan 9 user? The core OS principles are the same and most > "shell" concepts also. > Totally. No one labels you a Plan 9 user, you do that yourself. There are subtle semantic issues with the original "9front" nomenclature and remote history. We've all grown up a lot since then, but part of growing up includes owning errors of judgement. We can, presumably, find our way forward without that baggage, maybe not. Opinions seem to vary (my own personal conflicts included) in this forum. > 4) The split between original Plan9/9legacy and the 9front fork is > reflected in a split between communities. David and the 9front core devs > already showed that they are generally willing to share and accept > patches and I never noticed any bad tone in their discussion, however the > community is split up. And I don't think that we are so big that we _had_ > to split up, there are other reasons, maybe historical reasons I don't > know as a "fresh" community member with only ~5 years. > As I mentioned elsewhere, there is what seems to me a well defined "9front inside circle", which basically seems to include, by default or by choice, everyone that uses 9front as their primary (Plan 9) platform. Vocal defenders of 9front all appear to carry virtual membership cards to this circle. And in case I am once again misunderstood, I think that is a very important and positive aspect of the 9front community. As a pale-skinned South African (European descent), I am also deemed to carry a membership card to some kind of circle, so I'm not incompetent to address this aspect. What seems to be harped upon by the vocal defenders of 9front, however, is this fictional idea that there is another community, let's call them "9legacy", that is attempting to subvert 9front's efforts to gain some kind of recognition in the bigger picture. I know no one whose preference, like mine, is to stick closer to the 9legacy release of Plan 9, who in some way wants to reduce the value of 9front. Just as OP points out, cooperation between David and Cinap and colleagues has been cordial, if occasionally confrontational, for many, many years. So Hiro and Kurt and others can be scratchy and no doubt so can I, I don't think any of us have done any permanent damage to the 9fans or the narrower 9front community. Hmm, there has been some damage, quite a way back,
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> more that one is less adverse to pulling the out the whole engine to fix the > car and the other is more adverse i think the better comparison is that with our volkswagen we can actually drive. i know the bell-labs car radio won't even boot bec. you're using the wrong IDE port. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mbe7983b17b5ba71467f89381 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Hello dear community, I've read through many things in this thread and just want to add some two cents in a list format: 1) p9f (to my knowledge) never said anything about The One Plan 9. This was afaik the idea of some other community member, and I never heard any statement by p9f about that. 2) In fact, p9f is pretty silent, not only these days. This could be a good sign, as they let community be what they are, only occasionally taking part in it. 3) the p9f website promotes links to the Plan 9 archive software (V1-V4), 9legacy as "Plan 9 with many useful patches", the RPi version and other Plan 9 resources. 9front is _never_ mentioned at all. It seems like they don't consider 9front as a Plan 9 system at all. I don't know why, it's possible they just don't want it to exist or they don't know how to see it. It just hurts me personally as a community person who uses 9front and not the original Plan 9. And it's confusing. Am I even a Plan 9 user? The core OS principles are the same and most "shell" concepts also. 4) The split between original Plan9/9legacy and the 9front fork is reflected in a split between communities. David and the 9front core devs already showed that they are generally willing to share and accept patches and I never noticed any bad tone in their discussion, however the community is split up. And I don't think that we are so big that we _had_ to split up, there are other reasons, maybe historical reasons I don't know as a "fresh" community member with only ~5 years. 5) I really wished p9f would tell us more about their plans. It really seems like it's what we (9gridchan chat) feared in the beginning: a secret society. p9f is very silent, currently only seems to manage GSoC and nothing more. They told us they needed time to organize GSoC and themselves, but that was in january/february! It's fine if they want to be silent, but it would be nice to see what we can expect from them. Currently it seems like they just want to share links to 9legacy and the archive and organize GSoC and hide the fact that 9front exists. 6) p9f had a page about their purpose. It was like, they want to promote all Plan 9 systems and related technologies: 9atom, 9legacy, ... missing the (apparently) most obvious one: 9front. I couldn't find the page anymore. Other dubious sources can be found on the 9front /who/ site about p9f, where they apparently stole resources from 9front/cat-v pages. Very suspicious somehow. 7) To clarify: I don't want to see p9f as bad. I want to see them as a nice organization which is open for community efforts that need some official site. I want to see other community members/devs there, maybe one 9front contributor. I want to see them mentioning 9front like they mention other Plan 9 projects. I want to see p9f members open their mouths sometimes (which does happen) and take part in the community. These are my wishes and notes, everything from my perspective. sirjofri -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mc7a4815c52acb2ee56b20f23 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Hej Eli, I think, philosophically, there is a disconnect re: the status of 9front vs 9legacy by 9legacy folks. Even David suggested that 9legacy is “real” Plan 9, rather than a fork. Fundamentally this is semantics, but it leads to seeing them as fundamentally different things, when they really aren’t. The true disconnect is what position within each hold in regards to each other. Historically, forks (after a point) stay forks and no longer contribute “upstream” to their parent for love and cookies. They become cooperative peers [in good cases] or competition [in not so good cases]. Even *if* 9legacy is the “true" torchbearer, the fork happened ages ago. Some in the 9legacy camp see 9front as a downstream project that should [be forced] to make patches for the “true” Plan 9. Most 9front devs and users see them as peer projects and feel that pointing to the source code and letting 9legacy folks make their own patch the reasonable answer. Most 9front people have no vested interest in porting anything to 9legacy, since it is not the one they use. To them, it is like Ubuntu being expected to upstream cherry picked features and bug changes hand selected by Debian developers who don’t want to do it. Pretty absurd. Insofar as what David du Colombier said that 9legacy is a “continuation” of Plan 9 from Bell Labs, sure. However, cinap or hiro or Ori or a bunch of other people here can make that same argument with 9front. 9front came about because people were slow to fix things or reticent to change things. In this way, *both* are continuations. But in the end, looking at the project as a peer vs project as a subordinate offshoot frames how further dialog and cooperation is done. In the former, we can point at code, debate healthy re: what level of compatibility is worth it [i.e. what Plan 9 from Bell Labs version 2 software are you really wanting to run and not just update a few lines of code…], what provisional changes can be made to fix issues but maintain old interfaces while everyone catch up, bugs in the legacy code that can be fixed, how can we collectively showcase software tools [non-OS code] made by the collective community, etc. In the latter, it will typically degrade to finger wagging for doing something that steps over some invisible line or demanding that specific changes be ported to the “real” one… i.e. 9front contributors have the bulk of the emotional and physical labor supporting a version they will never use. hiro made a bit of a tongue in cheek, shit talking quip re: “lol but it is” since 9front, for good or for bad, probably commits orders of magnitude more code than other 9family projects. And from the 9front ml and code discussions, the community does keep pretty high standards in not just committing crap, cruft, or flights of fancy into the repo. Design wise, both 9legacy and 9front stick to simplicity and cleanliness present in the software culture of the Bell Labs team. It isn’t like one is crazy bloat and the other is elegant… more that one is less adverse to pulling the out the whole engine to fix the car and the other is more adverse. One is less interested in backwards compatibility with versions from 20 years ago for backwards compatibility sake and one wants to not have anything not run that V4 can. Both are different strategies and have different benefits... So not to belabour things further, I think we kind of need to come to somewhat of a consensus re: how these two project relate. I honestly think that imposing a “One Plan 9” or reframing 9legacy as the authoritative parent project will in fact harm 9legacy more the 9front, as the latter is more comfortable doing its own thing and honestly, 9front works better on more hardware and is more actively updated and supported. Agreeing that both projects are sister projects allows more dialog and actual sharing to happen. My intention was not to spark some sort of holy war and I get the feeling most people in this community see the two are peer projects. When people float the idea of the P9F imposing a “One Plan 9” by dictum rather than the actual codebases, community members, etc. deciding how things should work, well, that needs to be called out… -pixelheresy > On 19. Aug 2021, at 1.00, Eli Cohen wrote: > > what is all the friction actually about here?? the most important > philosophical question always ends up the same, how can we figure out > a good formula for not being jerks? > > I have ended up using 9front more and more, obviously. 9front was > started specifically to address the fact that Plan 9 from Bell Labs > didn't run on most computers... If I have any feeling at all about it, > it's that there's room for another fork that is an even simpler > research platform. in other discussions people say, why do we have > things that aren't relevant? We all love catclock, email... some users > may only want plan 9 for that... some people also discussed even > removing
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
On 8/19/21, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I never said it was *the* development branch. > > lol > > but it is. > Correct. On two fronts, to coin a phrase. It is active and it is well supported. It is the pragmatic end of the Plan 9 spectrum, courtesy of Cinap who clearly would be a Torvalds if Plan 9 had gained the traction of Linux. We are all lucky, in a somewhat masochistic sense, that Cinap is not Torvalds and Plan 9 came a little late on the scene and was "licenced to kill" itself. Wrong generation, that was, but for those who want everything and the kitchen sink, Linux is by far more convenient: I am typing this into Gmail's "basic HTML" in an obsolete and unsupported version of 32-bit Chromium under Linux Mint. I guess it IS my preference, even though I greatly regret that there aren't enough seconds left in my universe to migrate everything I can to my Plan 9 network. Which, given that this is a "philosophy" thread and both Rob and Russ are on board at least occasionally, may entitle me to ask: my understanding is that both R use P9P under a version of MacOS "du jour". I rely on P9P to relieve some of my frustrations with Linux (and there are hundreds, some go back to my NetBSD days) and in some crazy way I would tolerate logging in to Rio and I am totally sold on acme as my editor from my remote workstation to a suitably tweaked development server 300km away (ssh -fX...). Hell, this saved my bacon recently after a serious outage: "ssh -fX devbox acme -l acme.dump". How do I reward R for their efforts? And what have they neglected to contribute to the mental health of suffering people like me in the last few years :-) ? In any case, the point is not where I am, but where I come from and where I wish to be. I don't run Windows on my premises in any size or shape. I'll probably regret dropping it from my (cheap, non-plan 9-compatible) HP laptop on my most recent Linux Mint upgrade, but I have learnt what I can do with GPT and it doesn't bug me in the least to run Windows on a USB-3 connection to my drive (haven't needed to do that, yet, I may have to eat these words). I don't want to run Linux, either, in principle. Now that I have to think about it, I might not mind using Linux as a hypervisor and everything else under KVM, but for now the only hardware I own that supports Qemu-KVM is what I use for the Fossil/CPU server. If I can't see Linux, I can deal with it. One way or another, though, Linux has the ability to remind one frequently that it is in charge, in a manner neither NetBSD nor Plan 9 do. I don't see how I can create the seamless environment I seek by glueing together divergent systems such as 9front, 9legacy (my kernel I label 9miller, a version configured for my server and workstation, 32-bit X86 even though the server is the most advanced platform in my network, short of my Samsung phone), P9P under NetBSD (acme-over-remote-X works fine there, too) if these extremely preferable platforms (and I excluded P9P under Linux, but in fact that remains the main option, like right now, it's just the least preferable) continue to diverge, nay, are encouraged to diverge. And of course, the scarier possibility is that one or more of my essential ingredients will slip beyond my equipment's ability to run it. Already, Linux Mint 20.2 with Skype and Chrome is too much for 2GiB of memory in my laptop and I don't have the income that allows me to keep up with hardware advances. In summary, I am entirely contrary in attitude to Keith, because my interest lies in smaller, not bigger (I keep hoping I can afford a recent rPi model, but I can't entirely justify that, yet). Another way to get my point across may be to point out that I have no issue with improvements to Plan 9. Its philosophy is sound and palatable, much more so than the monstrosities of Windows and Linux that no sane individual should willingly enslave oneself to. Windows is still extremely insecure and not even slightly open to a security audit, although I bet the NSA has no qualms exploiting what the see as security "features" from the comfort of a source licence paid for by the U.S.'s subjects; Linux is bloated beyond comprehension and I'm also not impressed with the OSS's approach to software quality. But divergence is in no manner "improvement", it needs to be negotiated back into the "core values". I appreciate that there are various costs associated with such "upstreaming" and that is why I'm suggesting that the P9F should take it on, identify the costs and also arbitrate, from a position of common wisdom, what is "core" and what is tangential. Note that "core" then becomes a future entity, not a past one, in this case. Note: 9fronters may well believe that outsiders refuse to grant them an identity they feel they have worked hard at earning. What they seem to miss that even though there may actually be an "inside", the outside is not the homogenous enemy they paint us as. Interestingly, what made 9front the success
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> I never said it was *the* development branch. lol but it is. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mf113b7df339ddd9e3ca6e523 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
what is all the friction actually about here?? the most important philosophical question always ends up the same, how can we figure out a good formula for not being jerks? I have ended up using 9front more and more, obviously. 9front was started specifically to address the fact that Plan 9 from Bell Labs didn't run on most computers... If I have any feeling at all about it, it's that there's room for another fork that is an even simpler research platform. in other discussions people say, why do we have things that aren't relevant? We all love catclock, email... some users may only want plan 9 for that... some people also discussed even removing compiled binaries as much as possible. mostly, I like the idea of plan 9 that runs on the computer I have... but I understand that for a lot of reasons other people don't necessarily feel the same way. we wouldn't be here if we didn't agree Plan 9 is the best OS design. and they're all free software. 9front has some very interesting things that 9legacy can (and does) use as patches. it's just actually difficult to write software, for some value of difficulty. there's a lot of shit going on in the world today... we all gathered here to agree Plan 9 is great software, then just be rude to each other because...? I really don't understand, I'm not exaggerating. what is the actual disagreement here? On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 1:12 PM David du Colombier <0in...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Here are some clarifications. > > 9legacy used to be a an experimental patch queue for > Plan 9 from Bell Labs, providing patches that were not > yet accepted into the mainline distribution. That's why > we didn't recommend to use 9legacy, unless you had > specific needs. > > However, this isn't really the case since 2015, because > Plan 9 from Bell Labs is not maintained anymore > (last release was 2015-01-10). > > Today, 9legacy is more of a continuation of Plan 9 from Bell Labs. > There are still experimental patches, but also a lot of fixes and > improvements that would probably be part of Plan 9 from Bell Labs > if it was still maintained. > > Also, NIX is not maintained anymore. However, there are > some other variants of 9k (the 64-bit Plan 9 kernel), including > the one available as part of 9legacy, that are still in progress. > > -- > David du Colombier -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Me55ae2eef0de0a39ecd205ad Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Here are some clarifications. 9legacy used to be a an experimental patch queue for Plan 9 from Bell Labs, providing patches that were not yet accepted into the mainline distribution. That's why we didn't recommend to use 9legacy, unless you had specific needs. However, this isn't really the case since 2015, because Plan 9 from Bell Labs is not maintained anymore (last release was 2015-01-10). Today, 9legacy is more of a continuation of Plan 9 from Bell Labs. There are still experimental patches, but also a lot of fixes and improvements that would probably be part of Plan 9 from Bell Labs if it was still maintained. Also, NIX is not maintained anymore. However, there are some other variants of 9k (the 64-bit Plan 9 kernel), including the one available as part of 9legacy, that are still in progress. -- David du Colombier -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mc9a3f2e566a1033cb9d790de Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
I don’t think the basic philosophy of Plan 9 and 9front really differ that much or in any deeply meaningful ways. I find 9front more usable for my needs. Sshnet works well, as does sshfs, and the smaller changes to the behaviors of Sam, rio RC shell windows etc (ctrl-b especially) seem to make a rather big difference to usability. Should there be an “upstream” relationship here? I honestly can’t tell. The confluence of the forks isn’t clear, and flow depends on where one stands it seems. The only negative outcome of forking is if we get to the point we can no longer share I think. Some investment in compatibility seems wise. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mdf57cc50805611bffb0c569b Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
> On 18. Aug 2021, at 14.28, Lucio De Re wrote: > Let me put it this way: German and Italian motorcycle manufacturers > eventually figured that the gear shift should be on the same side as > Japanese manufacturers preferred. This is my point exactly in one sense. In your example, there were alternate designs, and the German and Italian manufacturers conformed to the Japanese ones not by the Motorcycle Gearshift Foundation (MGF) sounding off on it or imposing a design for a “One Motorcycle Gearshift” [1MG] initiative. Instead, the experience of users and/or the better ergonomics of the design and/or functional logic dictated it was easier to just make them the same. Thought exercise: Fast forward 5 years from now… the NIX project delivers on a new version of the Plan 9 kernel that is brilliantly optimised for multicore/multinode distributed computing. Within a few weeks, 9front says, “this is the dopest thing ever” and folds it into their fork, along with some monkeying they have done to the kernel. Both get a shot in popularity and draw additional people into the Plan 9 community space. People develop software with this set of features in mind. Let’s even say that the P9F takes leave of their senses and dictates a new Plan 9 from Bell Labs V5, which is basically 9legacy with standard patches and a version number. Great. Would “official” Plan 9 want to take in the cool addition to be more compatible with closely related peers or would people balk about the other distress “not contributing to common cross-compatibility” and come up with it’s own thing and stick to their own thing. I would venture the former would happen for the same reason in your motorcycle example. > What I am proposing is that where some code will run on one flavour of > Plan 9 and not on another, which is annoying, that somebody be > entrusted with the common sense to suggest which of two > implementations should be favoured and for what reasons. In the case of plurality, you have a push and pull, where people may intentionally make a departure from compatibility for the sake of bettering things. That is a risk, sure, but that is where you get growth. And if it is the best, since it is free and open source, the better code can be worked into sister projects. It’s like when there is a win, everyone can win. And mind you, most software is more about different tastes, workflows, etc. and don’t affect capital C “Compatibility”. Similarly, a breaking change could be a problem and could even harm a project in the long term. That is where the risk comes in. > It seems to me that the paranoid individualist assumes malice behind > such an obvious proposal. I’m not sure malice is the right word. It is “motive”. It is clear you don’t like 9front as a distribution. That is your choice. But this isn’t the first time you have either directly or indirectly brought up the desire to propose that there should be a single Plan 9 and that what is official is dictated by editorial decision by a governing body. We obviously have very different views on top down vs bottom up development. However, most OSS development comes from a volunteer putting out a pull request that he or she things would make things better or a little standalone tool that people could find useful. The absense of authority, even in your motorcycle example, is not chaos. We have a community with some very smart and talented people. -pixelheresy > Lucio. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-Mdec4678ae5d02a14e4d6de91 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Yoh! What can I say? I kind of cherish being so wildly misrepresented. At least I'm taken seriously, even if totally misunderstood. Lucio. On 8/18/21, Keith Gibbs wrote: > Come, come, Vester. Please don’t introduce false premises under the guise of > calling them out. I never said that. 9front as the official Plan 9 would be > pretty absurd. > > I never said it was *the* development branch. It is *a* development branch. > I could even imagine that it may in fact be the most popular and active for > those wishing to develop new software on (with 9miller being very popular as > well). > > If fact, I noted other projects... other Plan 9s as well in my initial and > my response to Lucio. I was merely pointing out that Lucio in the past and > in the OAuth thread keeps introducing the idea that the P9F should impose > order and wall off everything but 9legacy [which he implies is the official > one], even to the point of arguing in the past that 9front developers should > port changes that are “good for the community” or some such to the “actual” > Plan 9. > > Instea the charter for P9F's language was written to be inclusive. Why? > Because historically this mailing list/community has been host to discussion > for 9legacy, 9atom, 9front, p9p, etc. Even Inferno or Harvey come up > semi-regularly. As such, it is not outside the general understanding of > “Plan 9” as encompassing a wider berth. Although many of the P9F folk are > contributors to 9legacy, I think they know that the community is broader and > want all of it to be “Plan 9”. > > So in the end, I apologise if it was unclear or confusing that I suggested > to Lucio that 9front was to be "Plan 9 from Bell Labs Version 5”. It was a > joke and everything I wrote following that should have made that very clear > that I was arguing *specifically* for a plurality of Plan 9s rather than a > single one [which Lucio was advocating for]. Lucio seems to hate 9front > specifically for some reason, so the initial statement was intended as > tongue in cheek. > > Both 9legacy and 9front serve important niche functions within Plan 9 space, > but neither *are* Plan 9. There is only one “official” Plan 9 and that was > last updated January 2015. 9legacy positions itself as patch set on top of > V4, but wants to maintain it in such a way that V4 will always function as > V4. 9legacy maintains that it is not a fork. 9front says explicitly that it > is a fork of V4 and a continuation based on it’s core principles. Both have > fed into each other’s ecosystems. Hell, 9legacy’s site even says to run Plan > 9 from Bell Labs rather than 9legacy if possible, which is kind of funny. > And NIX is still active, last I heard, but currently has a closed community, > not to mention Harvey and Jeanne. > > So my main point was that we have a plurality and we *should* continue to > have a plurality. Much like Lucio would find 9front as being blessed as “the > official one true Plan 9” repugnant, so too would others re: 9legacy. A fair > swathe of the Plan 9 enthusiast community want to build and evolve and a > fair swathe want to preserve and maintain, with some incremental quality of > life tweaks added in, and *both are totally valid*. > > -pixelheresy > >> On 18. Aug 2021, at 13.13, vic.thac...@fastmail.fm wrote: >> >> Starting from a false premise does not help. 9front is not a development >> branch of Plan 9. Plan 9 is Plan 9. 9front is 9front. 9front is an >> open-source fork or derivation of Plan 9. >> >> Trying to make 9front the new and official Plan 9 does seem absurd. I'm >> not sure why there is a strong need for validation. 9front does not need >> official recognition. Let 9front be what it is. It can exist independent >> of the Plan 9 name. >> >> Sincerely, >> Vester >> -- Lucio De Re 2 Piet Retief St Kestell (Eastern Free State) 9860 South Africa Ph.: +27 58 653 1433 Cell: +27 83 251 5824 -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M0953d9d310af6d87fb35fcff Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
On 8/18/21, vic.thac...@fastmail.fm wrote: > Trying to make 9front the new and official Plan 9 does seem absurd. I'm not > sure why there is a strong need for validation. 9front does not need > official recognition. Let 9front be what it is. It can exist independent of > the Plan 9 name. > The exact phrasing may not be my choice, but broadly I agree with that sentiment. Where incompatibilities exist, they can be worked around, but only if cooperation and not competition is the approach. And if cooperation is the approach, then minimising incompatibilities will be one common objective. Lucio. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M27deaa7047f5187005d97c77 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Come, come, Vester. Please don’t introduce false premises under the guise of calling them out. I never said that. 9front as the official Plan 9 would be pretty absurd. I never said it was *the* development branch. It is *a* development branch. I could even imagine that it may in fact be the most popular and active for those wishing to develop new software on (with 9miller being very popular as well). If fact, I noted other projects... other Plan 9s as well in my initial and my response to Lucio. I was merely pointing out that Lucio in the past and in the OAuth thread keeps introducing the idea that the P9F should impose order and wall off everything but 9legacy [which he implies is the official one], even to the point of arguing in the past that 9front developers should port changes that are “good for the community” or some such to the “actual” Plan 9. Instea the charter for P9F's language was written to be inclusive. Why? Because historically this mailing list/community has been host to discussion for 9legacy, 9atom, 9front, p9p, etc. Even Inferno or Harvey come up semi-regularly. As such, it is not outside the general understanding of “Plan 9” as encompassing a wider berth. Although many of the P9F folk are contributors to 9legacy, I think they know that the community is broader and want all of it to be “Plan 9”. So in the end, I apologise if it was unclear or confusing that I suggested to Lucio that 9front was to be "Plan 9 from Bell Labs Version 5”. It was a joke and everything I wrote following that should have made that very clear that I was arguing *specifically* for a plurality of Plan 9s rather than a single one [which Lucio was advocating for]. Lucio seems to hate 9front specifically for some reason, so the initial statement was intended as tongue in cheek. Both 9legacy and 9front serve important niche functions within Plan 9 space, but neither *are* Plan 9. There is only one “official” Plan 9 and that was last updated January 2015. 9legacy positions itself as patch set on top of V4, but wants to maintain it in such a way that V4 will always function as V4. 9legacy maintains that it is not a fork. 9front says explicitly that it is a fork of V4 and a continuation based on it’s core principles. Both have fed into each other’s ecosystems. Hell, 9legacy’s site even says to run Plan 9 from Bell Labs rather than 9legacy if possible, which is kind of funny. And NIX is still active, last I heard, but currently has a closed community, not to mention Harvey and Jeanne. So my main point was that we have a plurality and we *should* continue to have a plurality. Much like Lucio would find 9front as being blessed as “the official one true Plan 9” repugnant, so too would others re: 9legacy. A fair swathe of the Plan 9 enthusiast community want to build and evolve and a fair swathe want to preserve and maintain, with some incremental quality of life tweaks added in, and *both are totally valid*. -pixelheresy > On 18. Aug 2021, at 13.13, vic.thac...@fastmail.fm wrote: > > Starting from a false premise does not help. 9front is not a development > branch of Plan 9. Plan 9 is Plan 9. 9front is 9front. 9front is an > open-source fork or derivation of Plan 9. > > Trying to make 9front the new and official Plan 9 does seem absurd. I'm not > sure why there is a strong need for validation. 9front does not need official > recognition. Let 9front be what it is. It can exist independent of the Plan 9 > name. > > Sincerely, > Vester > -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M381a2c5d54ec68175eb453d4 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
On 8/18/21, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > I changed the Subject line to better reflect the discussion. Please do go > on. > Let me put it this way: German and Italian motorcycle manufacturers eventually figured that the gear shift should be on the same side as Japanese manufacturers preferred. What I am proposing is that where some code will run on one flavour of Plan 9 and not on another, which is annoying, that somebody be entrusted with the common sense to suggest which of two implementations should be favoured and for what reasons. It seems to me that the paranoid individualist assumes malice behind such an obvious proposal. Lucio. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M23c61c84f53dede4954ace32 Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
On 8/18/21, hiro <23h...@gmail.com> wrote: > is that my cue, are you calling in my services?! > If you have any actual understanding of factotum, *I* could easily gain from consulting such knowledge to scratch some of my immediate itches, as I'm no expert and factotum is only slowly revealing its secrets to me. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the money to "call in your services". If this is aimed at the P9F, I cannot possibly speak for them, I can only hope that they share at least some of my own aims. Lucio. -- 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/T9ef6430f3025e731-M655b399ffe88b07e7eeba62a Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Starting from a false premise does not help. 9front is not a development branch of Plan 9. Plan 9 is Plan 9. 9front is 9front. 9front is an open-source fork or derivation of Plan 9. Trying to make 9front the new and official Plan 9 does seem absurd. I'm not sure why there is a strong need for validation. 9front does not need official recognition. Let 9front be what it is. It can exist independent of the Plan 9 name. Sincerely, Vester On Wed, Aug 18, 2021, at 16:02, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > I changed the Subject line to better reflect the discussion. Please do go on. > > On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 8:57 PM Lucio De Re wrote: > > > > On 8/17/21, Keith Gibbs wrote: > > > One Plan Nine? > > > > > > Sure, we have the historical version of the Bell Labs/Lucient codebase, > > > preserved as 9legacy, but yeah we have one currently developed branch of > > > Plan 9 called 9front. Are you proposing that to be called “Plan 9 from > > > Bell > > > Labs 5th edition”? > > > > > I bet you think I don't; you wouldn't ask, otherwise. > > > > > To be serious though, when has monolithic code bases ever benefited things > > > in an Open Source community? > > > > You bought the "exceptionalism" Kool-Aid, lock, stock and barrel, > > haven't you? It's a question of size: a small code base should remain > > small, then it is not weaponisable or monetisable. So we raise the bar > > higher and higher and shake off whatever can't stick hard enough. A > > human natural instinct (more!, gimme more! features! bugs! anything so > > I can have bigger, faster!) bent to the interest of elites (here in > > Africa we know it as the Big Man Syndrome). > > > > > I mean the only reason would be to control who > > > can/cannot make decisions on what goes in the stone soup. > > Do you have incontrovertible evidence? In my caffeine-deprived state, > > I feel you're just following the sheep gospel, no offence intended. In > > my opinion, the trap is always there, ready to be deployed. And the > > masses are always ready to fall into it. Occasionally a Christ figure > > comes along to warn us, but only the elite can understand the message > > and of course they then distort it in the direction that suits them > > best. And the masses are none the wiser, not this time, not the next > > time, not any other time, because the elite can be swapped out > > entirely and the new elite becomes them, ad nauseam. > > > > > There are multiple > > > BSDs. There are multiple Linuxes. Using 9legacy as more than historical > > > baseline means that we will be stuck with decisions put in place 20-30 > > > years > > > ago rather than iterating and moving things forward. The purpose of P9F is > > > to “promote and support” not to regulate. > > > > > Sure, and an infinite variety of vehicles with wheels at the four > > corners and seats that just occupy space and consume carbon-based > > fuels. Even EVs where each wheel could be both motor and power > > generator have retained that ridiculous formula. But they look > > different (sort of, there's greater difference in time than there in > > style). Oh, let's not ignore that autos also sit idle (my estimate) > > 95% of their life: is that what they are designed for? And the AI in > > my phone, is that also sitting idle? I had a couple of instances > > recently where in the middle of the night my password locked Samsung > > J5 decided to continue reading me the SF short story collection I > > turned off before going to sleep. > > > > But Android is Open Source, isn't it? I can look under the bonned, can't I? > > > > Well, the P9F is what it is. It will also become what it is naturally > > attracted to unless some boundaries - Trump's fence? - are put in > > place. > > > > > I would love to imagine a time when we have a resurgence of multiple Plan > > > 9s. I would love to see Akaros and 9atom have a shot in the arm [although > > > much of what the latter had seems to be swallowed up by 9front and 9legacy > > > and the project dead]. I would love to see NIX get a little more traction, > > > as it seems it is just a standalone experiment [albeit a cool one in terms > > > of goals]. I think it would be really healthy for Jeanne and Harvey to be > > > more closer to “family” in the community rather than third cousins. Once > > > we > > > have a plurality of opinions, of perspectives, of visions, then we can > > > better broker standards and overall trajectories. > > > > > I'm going to leave this here, with a comment to the effect that I > > totally disagree with the sentiments. There is room, need is not a > > strong enough word for what I'm thinking, for creativity, but software > > is not a primordial soup out of which complex organisms will rise to > > take over the Universe and consume it out of existence, its and > > theirs. > > > > More likely, we'll teach - by example, not intentionally, no - our AI > > products to weaponise the tools we are no longer sufficiently > > naturally intelligent to
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
Sorry for posting the other to the original title. Was authoring it prior to your subject change and sent it after. Will happily reply to this thread if it continues. But in the meantime, you can lock me in the stocks and throw fruit ;). -pixelheresy > On 18 Aug 2021, at 10:04, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > > I changed the Subject line to better reflect the discussion. Please do go on. > >> On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 8:57 PM Lucio De Re wrote: >> >>> On 8/17/21, Keith Gibbs wrote: >>> One Plan Nine? >>> >>> Sure, we have the historical version of the Bell Labs/Lucient codebase, >>> preserved as 9legacy, but yeah we have one currently developed branch of >>> Plan 9 called 9front. Are you proposing that to be called “Plan 9 from Bell >>> Labs 5th edition”? >>> >> I bet you think I don't; you wouldn't ask, otherwise. >> >>> To be serious though, when has monolithic code bases ever benefited things >>> in an Open Source community? >> >> You bought the "exceptionalism" Kool-Aid, lock, stock and barrel, >> haven't you? It's a question of size: a small code base should remain >> small, then it is not weaponisable or monetisable. So we raise the bar >> higher and higher and shake off whatever can't stick hard enough. A >> human natural instinct (more!, gimme more! features! bugs! anything so >> I can have bigger, faster!) bent to the interest of elites (here in >> Africa we know it as the Big Man Syndrome). >> >>> I mean the only reason would be to control who >>> can/cannot make decisions on what goes in the stone soup. >> Do you have incontrovertible evidence? In my caffeine-deprived state, >> I feel you're just following the sheep gospel, no offence intended. In >> my opinion, the trap is always there, ready to be deployed. And the >> masses are always ready to fall into it. Occasionally a Christ figure >> comes along to warn us, but only the elite can understand the message >> and of course they then distort it in the direction that suits them >> best. And the masses are none the wiser, not this time, not the next >> time, not any other time, because the elite can be swapped out >> entirely and the new elite becomes them, ad nauseam. >> >>> There are multiple >>> BSDs. There are multiple Linuxes. Using 9legacy as more than historical >>> baseline means that we will be stuck with decisions put in place 20-30 years >>> ago rather than iterating and moving things forward. The purpose of P9F is >>> to “promote and support” not to regulate. >>> >> Sure, and an infinite variety of vehicles with wheels at the four >> corners and seats that just occupy space and consume carbon-based >> fuels. Even EVs where each wheel could be both motor and power >> generator have retained that ridiculous formula. But they look >> different (sort of, there's greater difference in time than there in >> style). Oh, let's not ignore that autos also sit idle (my estimate) >> 95% of their life: is that what they are designed for? And the AI in >> my phone, is that also sitting idle? I had a couple of instances >> recently where in the middle of the night my password locked Samsung >> J5 decided to continue reading me the SF short story collection I >> turned off before going to sleep. >> >> But Android is Open Source, isn't it? I can look under the bonned, can't I? >> >> Well, the P9F is what it is. It will also become what it is naturally >> attracted to unless some boundaries - Trump's fence? - are put in >> place. >> >>> I would love to imagine a time when we have a resurgence of multiple Plan >>> 9s. I would love to see Akaros and 9atom have a shot in the arm [although >>> much of what the latter had seems to be swallowed up by 9front and 9legacy >>> and the project dead]. I would love to see NIX get a little more traction, >>> as it seems it is just a standalone experiment [albeit a cool one in terms >>> of goals]. I think it would be really healthy for Jeanne and Harvey to be >>> more closer to “family” in the community rather than third cousins. Once we >>> have a plurality of opinions, of perspectives, of visions, then we can >>> better broker standards and overall trajectories. >>> >> I'm going to leave this here, with a comment to the effect that I >> totally disagree with the sentiments. There is room, need is not a >> strong enough word for what I'm thinking, for creativity, but software >> is not a primordial soup out of which complex organisms will rise to >> take over the Universe and consume it out of existence, its and >> theirs. >> >> More likely, we'll teach - by example, not intentionally, no - our AI >> products to weaponise the tools we are no longer sufficiently >> naturally intelligent to understand and control (tell me there's a >> difference) and turn us into slaves because, like the human elite, >> they will measure their worth in what they can accumulate (human >> slaves sounds like a neat currency to me, I could use some, it's >> worked in all of human history - ask Epstein), just like
Re: [9fans] Software philosophy
is that my cue, are you calling in my services?! On 8/18/21, Skip Tavakkolian wrote: > I changed the Subject line to better reflect the discussion. Please do go > on. > > On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 8:57 PM Lucio De Re wrote: >> >> On 8/17/21, Keith Gibbs wrote: >> > One Plan Nine? >> > >> > Sure, we have the historical version of the Bell Labs/Lucient codebase, >> > preserved as 9legacy, but yeah we have one currently developed branch >> > of >> > Plan 9 called 9front. Are you proposing that to be called “Plan 9 from >> > Bell >> > Labs 5th edition”? >> > >> I bet you think I don't; you wouldn't ask, otherwise. >> >> > To be serious though, when has monolithic code bases ever benefited >> > things >> > in an Open Source community? >> >> You bought the "exceptionalism" Kool-Aid, lock, stock and barrel, >> haven't you? It's a question of size: a small code base should remain >> small, then it is not weaponisable or monetisable. So we raise the bar >> higher and higher and shake off whatever can't stick hard enough. A >> human natural instinct (more!, gimme more! features! bugs! anything so >> I can have bigger, faster!) bent to the interest of elites (here in >> Africa we know it as the Big Man Syndrome). >> >> > I mean the only reason would be to control who >> > can/cannot make decisions on what goes in the stone soup. >> Do you have incontrovertible evidence? In my caffeine-deprived state, >> I feel you're just following the sheep gospel, no offence intended. In >> my opinion, the trap is always there, ready to be deployed. And the >> masses are always ready to fall into it. Occasionally a Christ figure >> comes along to warn us, but only the elite can understand the message >> and of course they then distort it in the direction that suits them >> best. And the masses are none the wiser, not this time, not the next >> time, not any other time, because the elite can be swapped out >> entirely and the new elite becomes them, ad nauseam. >> >> > There are multiple >> > BSDs. There are multiple Linuxes. Using 9legacy as more than historical >> > baseline means that we will be stuck with decisions put in place 20-30 >> > years >> > ago rather than iterating and moving things forward. The purpose of P9F >> > is >> > to “promote and support” not to regulate. >> > >> Sure, and an infinite variety of vehicles with wheels at the four >> corners and seats that just occupy space and consume carbon-based >> fuels. Even EVs where each wheel could be both motor and power >> generator have retained that ridiculous formula. But they look >> different (sort of, there's greater difference in time than there in >> style). Oh, let's not ignore that autos also sit idle (my estimate) >> 95% of their life: is that what they are designed for? And the AI in >> my phone, is that also sitting idle? I had a couple of instances >> recently where in the middle of the night my password locked Samsung >> J5 decided to continue reading me the SF short story collection I >> turned off before going to sleep. >> >> But Android is Open Source, isn't it? I can look under the bonned, can't >> I? >> >> Well, the P9F is what it is. It will also become what it is naturally >> attracted to unless some boundaries - Trump's fence? - are put in >> place. >> >> > I would love to imagine a time when we have a resurgence of multiple >> > Plan >> > 9s. I would love to see Akaros and 9atom have a shot in the arm >> > [although >> > much of what the latter had seems to be swallowed up by 9front and >> > 9legacy >> > and the project dead]. I would love to see NIX get a little more >> > traction, >> > as it seems it is just a standalone experiment [albeit a cool one in >> > terms >> > of goals]. I think it would be really healthy for Jeanne and Harvey to >> > be >> > more closer to “family” in the community rather than third cousins. Once >> > we >> > have a plurality of opinions, of perspectives, of visions, then we can >> > better broker standards and overall trajectories. >> > >> I'm going to leave this here, with a comment to the effect that I >> totally disagree with the sentiments. There is room, need is not a >> strong enough word for what I'm thinking, for creativity, but software >> is not a primordial soup out of which complex organisms will rise to >> take over the Universe and consume it out of existence, its and >> theirs. >> >> More likely, we'll teach - by example, not intentionally, no - our AI >> products to weaponise the tools we are no longer sufficiently >> naturally intelligent to understand and control (tell me there's a >> difference) and turn us into slaves because, like the human elite, >> they will measure their worth in what they can accumulate (human >> slaves sounds like a neat currency to me, I could use some, it's >> worked in all of human history - ask Epstein), just like their >> creators did. >> >> Nothing to do with Plan 9, of course, because it really is just a drop >> of accidental sanity in an ocean of greed and
[9fans] Software philosophy
I changed the Subject line to better reflect the discussion. Please do go on. On Tue, Aug 17, 2021 at 8:57 PM Lucio De Re wrote: > > On 8/17/21, Keith Gibbs wrote: > > One Plan Nine? > > > > Sure, we have the historical version of the Bell Labs/Lucient codebase, > > preserved as 9legacy, but yeah we have one currently developed branch of > > Plan 9 called 9front. Are you proposing that to be called “Plan 9 from Bell > > Labs 5th edition”? > > > I bet you think I don't; you wouldn't ask, otherwise. > > > To be serious though, when has monolithic code bases ever benefited things > > in an Open Source community? > > You bought the "exceptionalism" Kool-Aid, lock, stock and barrel, > haven't you? It's a question of size: a small code base should remain > small, then it is not weaponisable or monetisable. So we raise the bar > higher and higher and shake off whatever can't stick hard enough. A > human natural instinct (more!, gimme more! features! bugs! anything so > I can have bigger, faster!) bent to the interest of elites (here in > Africa we know it as the Big Man Syndrome). > > > I mean the only reason would be to control who > > can/cannot make decisions on what goes in the stone soup. > Do you have incontrovertible evidence? In my caffeine-deprived state, > I feel you're just following the sheep gospel, no offence intended. In > my opinion, the trap is always there, ready to be deployed. And the > masses are always ready to fall into it. Occasionally a Christ figure > comes along to warn us, but only the elite can understand the message > and of course they then distort it in the direction that suits them > best. And the masses are none the wiser, not this time, not the next > time, not any other time, because the elite can be swapped out > entirely and the new elite becomes them, ad nauseam. > > > There are multiple > > BSDs. There are multiple Linuxes. Using 9legacy as more than historical > > baseline means that we will be stuck with decisions put in place 20-30 years > > ago rather than iterating and moving things forward. The purpose of P9F is > > to “promote and support” not to regulate. > > > Sure, and an infinite variety of vehicles with wheels at the four > corners and seats that just occupy space and consume carbon-based > fuels. Even EVs where each wheel could be both motor and power > generator have retained that ridiculous formula. But they look > different (sort of, there's greater difference in time than there in > style). Oh, let's not ignore that autos also sit idle (my estimate) > 95% of their life: is that what they are designed for? And the AI in > my phone, is that also sitting idle? I had a couple of instances > recently where in the middle of the night my password locked Samsung > J5 decided to continue reading me the SF short story collection I > turned off before going to sleep. > > But Android is Open Source, isn't it? I can look under the bonned, can't I? > > Well, the P9F is what it is. It will also become what it is naturally > attracted to unless some boundaries - Trump's fence? - are put in > place. > > > I would love to imagine a time when we have a resurgence of multiple Plan > > 9s. I would love to see Akaros and 9atom have a shot in the arm [although > > much of what the latter had seems to be swallowed up by 9front and 9legacy > > and the project dead]. I would love to see NIX get a little more traction, > > as it seems it is just a standalone experiment [albeit a cool one in terms > > of goals]. I think it would be really healthy for Jeanne and Harvey to be > > more closer to “family” in the community rather than third cousins. Once we > > have a plurality of opinions, of perspectives, of visions, then we can > > better broker standards and overall trajectories. > > > I'm going to leave this here, with a comment to the effect that I > totally disagree with the sentiments. There is room, need is not a > strong enough word for what I'm thinking, for creativity, but software > is not a primordial soup out of which complex organisms will rise to > take over the Universe and consume it out of existence, its and > theirs. > > More likely, we'll teach - by example, not intentionally, no - our AI > products to weaponise the tools we are no longer sufficiently > naturally intelligent to understand and control (tell me there's a > difference) and turn us into slaves because, like the human elite, > they will measure their worth in what they can accumulate (human > slaves sounds like a neat currency to me, I could use some, it's > worked in all of human history - ask Epstein), just like their > creators did. > > Nothing to do with Plan 9, of course, because it really is just a drop > of accidental sanity in an ocean of greed and competition. But, to > complete the imagery, I'd rather be plankton in a drop of Plan 9 than > a shark in the Linux Ocean. And I am, to the extent that I support and > most of all appreciate what makes my ecosystem continue to tick. > Including any
