Let's take a step back here, and stop treating jerks like Kurt (or me, for that matter) the way they treat the ideas they perceive to be hare-brained.
It's weird that with all the time in the world to "think before posting", knee-jerk reactions still find their way to a mailing list like this one that is capable of extremely high quality discussion. The psychology is clearly complex, mixing territoriality with competence with defensiveness with mere human frailties, I would not even like anyone to start investigating that: who knows what it may reveal? What I see, though, is that part of the quality displayed here depends on the like of Hiro and Kurt (and others, I'm not picking on the two of them) to set a high bar, while others are willing to offer what may even be misplaced empathy and thus also encourage a certain type of contribution that may seem weak at best. No one has a monopoly of "what's good for Plan9...", although if I was the King here, I'd whip everyone into blending divergent "distros" - for that despicable moniker describes precisely what they are - into a modular system where each divergence is carefully documented so that even newbies can slot into their base system exactly what they perceive as being valuable. So, in the interest of not discouraging hare-brained ideas that may benefit us all, while ensuring that the spirit of Plan 9 is not diluted by the lure of Linux and associates, let's give everyone some space and help those that feel offended or victimised to understand that the rules of the game, here, at least, include considerable pain. Happy coding, everyone! Lucio.
