> I don't know, and I never said anybody denied me anything. You asked > who [in the Plan 9 community] cares, I answered. I do.
Fair enough. But the second question remains: where does Plan 9 fit in? Plan 9 started life with minimalist aspirations and grew up in a world that has embraced computing paradigms that seem in conflict with these aspirations. There seems to me that there are two options: 1. Considerable resources are applied to produce or port a minimum set of applications (Gnome, FireFox, Evolution, OpenOffice, the Gimp, say) to Plan 9, thus competing on a better level with Linux and, to a much smaller extent, with Windows, or 2. The available resources continue to be applied to problems closer to the Plan 9 concept space (Abaco, Omero, GSoC projects, etc.). As I see little merit in making another Windows of Plan 9, even via the Linux route, I prefer the second option. Also, I don't understand the benefits of the first option: when I want Linux, NetBSD or Windows, I have them all at my fingertips, at least in one version. None of them is an adequate replacement for any of the others, so I don't see how Plan 9, considerably less mainstream/orthodox than any of the others, could ever aspire to grab marketplace from any of its competitors. Certainly, I won't sell it on that ticket. ++L
