thanks for the well considered post. i would add (somewhat less articulately)
(e) 9p appliances. the cannonical example of this would be ken's fileserver. it doesn't run the same kernel as the cpu server. but it does speak 9p. thus it is able to be a very high-reliablity, well- featured, efficient plan 9 appliance without a large or complex codebase. (even the slightly crunchy pc port.) the fileserver (like 9load) has suffered due to perceived driver issues. i've found it not to be much of an issue as i haven't had to set up too many fileservers (because they are so good) and porting drivers (or developing new ones) has been fairly straightforward. i've been able to put in 3 new drivers (including 10gbe) in the last week. with hardware-based vm coming to x86, it should be easier to set up a fileserver -- or other 9p-based appliances -- on their own virtual machine. what about an appliance to manage email? - erik
