Re: [9fans] There is no fork

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

So we're all putting it here?  Okay then.  I agree with pretty-much
everything hiro said this time.

Regarding differences between forks, what springs to my mind is the
fixes 9front needed to host cat-v.org.  The site was switched to a
9front server at the time of Uriel's death, news of which triggered a
huge traffic increase for a while.  It was evident that no-one had put
Plan 9 under that kind of load before, or if they had, they hadn't
released their fixes.  I remember someone saying, "Everyone who used
Plan 9 seriously must have maintained their own fork."

Hosting cat-v.org may be unusual load.  Web server and CMS are both a
lot of shell scripts, so there is a lot of pipes and new processes all
the time.  9front has received more fixes relating to hosting it over
the years.

There was also a change to factotum to prevent it deadlocking the
filesystem.  I don't remember what triggered that bug!

Plenty of other stuff, but I'm out of time to write (for once).  I
have no idea if any other forks picked up any of the changes, although
I'm sure 9atom has its own fixes particularly related to NAS work.

Re: [9fans] There is no fork

[as]

Ive been using 9front as a primary system ever since the one true
distribution neutered bintime and replaced it with the nsec system call.
Its nice that the 9front maintainers voulenteer to keep plan9's simplicity
alive (9atom is great too and has myriad device drivers written for modern
hardware as well). Maintaining these systems is a lot more meritable of an
endeavor than inhaling the aeresol of the Linux cloud and contributing to
an ecosystem superceeded over 3 decades ago.

On Sat, Feb 10, 2018, 02:53 Ethan Grammatikidis  wrote:

> eeh... I cut out a bunch of stuff from my last mail because I didn't want
> to derail the thread.
>
> Anyone want a new thread on discussing the differences, or shall we just
> bung it all here?
>
>

Re: [9fans] There is no fork

[hiro]

i forgot to mention: if you are confused why valuable contributions to
another fork are not included in 9front, and you don't know why,
please come and talk to us about it. either we didn't see it or
there's a architectural decisions or goals that don't align with
9front.

in general if you can advance plan9 9front would love to take part.
multiple people track very closely what is happening elsewhere, though
there's definitely some randomness involved, and a selection process
to prevent bad decisions from piling up.

we have a wish to stay compatible as much as possible. even
questionable changes in mainline were integrated when there was no
other way.

we have a mailing list, so it doesn't matter whether you irc or not.

Re: [9fans] There is no fork

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

eeh... I cut out a bunch of stuff from my last mail because I didn't want to 
derail the thread.

Anyone want a new thread on discussing the differences, or shall we just bung 
it all here?

Re: [9fans] There is no fork

[hiro]

The reason 9front exists is because it was too difficult to get
patches applied to mainline plan9. Like geoff for mainline, 9front has
cinap as gatekeeper to maintain quality and when possible stability.
Also cinap is a programming monster and keeps on improving 9front
in big steps, so there isn't really any competition from the
point of view of a user.

Our way of collaboration might not be everybody's style: Grant money
doesn't exist, just one clear goal for everybody: advancing 9front.
Depending on the quality, contributions are either discussed till
fruition or, for trivial stuff, cleaned up and applied without big
discussion. Nobody is left to wonder for months why his patches suck,
there's always detailed feedback, for the people who want to improve.
Even as a bystander you can learn a lot from the process.

Admittedly a big chunk of the communication happens on irc (#cat-v)
and is not always
efficient. Sadly it's hard to work together if you don't all sit in
the same lab, so it's the best we can do. Still there are very
enlightening moments every now and then that are extremely satisfying.
Honest and early feedback helps the less experienced people not get
off track.

For some of us 9front is also a very important counterbalance to bad
technological decisions at our workplaces.

Of course we also multiply the rumours, secrecy, fear and
misunderstandings that have arisen around the plan 9 community with
our awesome propaganda and humour. So I see people getting offended
and distancing themselves. Sometimes it's not clear whether we should
laugh about this or be sad.

I don't speak for 9front, I speak for myself. People sadly aren't used
to the idea that we're all just independent individuals, so I'm
leaving this disclaimer here trying to avoid making a bad impression
on the project.

Re: [9fans] There is no fork

[Ethan Grammatikidis]

On Sat, Feb 10, 2018, at 4:24 AM, Lucio De Re wrote:
> 
> That said, I deem it unfortunate that there isn't a drive to
> consolidate the various flavours of Plan 9 into a single offering, or
> at least identify and discuss the differences and provide for the
> choices from a single source (pun intended).

Identifying and discussing the differences might be nice.
Providing a single source sounds suspiciously like work. :) 
In any case, this very mailing list seems a useful single point 
of contact for many forks.

-- 
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer