2007/10/10, Anselm R. Garbe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Tue, Oct 09, 2007 at 11:02:29PM -0400, Manny Calavera wrote: > > "Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a compelling enough > > improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor. Compared to Plan 9, Unix > > creaks and clanks and has obvious rust spots, but it gets the job done > > well enough to hold its position. There is a lesson here for ambitious > > system architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an > > existing codebase that is just good enough." > > I think Plan 9 hasn't been a success because the Bell Labs made > it available under an Open Source license too late. If they'd > released it earlier there would have been chances of earlier > adaption in todays OS designs. A key to Unix' success was that > it has been available (in form of BSD and Linux) to students for > nearly the last two decades, which can't be said of Plan 9. > > If Plan 9 would have been made production ready by Lucent or > like commercial Unices, it might have reached a market share > like HP-UX or something similiar today. But that wasn't the > case. > > I don't believe it failed because Unix was just good enough. > Hell, why did OS X or Windows succeeded then? They are much worse > than Unix. >
I agree with this, IMVHO. If it had been released as open source sooner, at least it would have had success in cs courses. -- - yiyus || JGL .
