Why Plan-9?

[Karsten M. Self]

on Sun, Oct 21, 2001 at 06:29:16PM -0500, Jim Choate (ravage at EINSTEIN.ssz.com) wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> 
> > This says nothing about current development.  Word I've heard (from
> > someone tangentially involved with the project) was that the release was
> > something of a desperation move.  As someone who watches free software
> > licences closely, the Plan 9 license is one of the more twisted bits of
> > corporate-authored licenses.  Not necessarially bad, but it reeks of
> > compromise clauses speaking to internal battles.  Rumor was that a
> > codebase that had been stable for a couple of years saw a slew of
> > commits in the weeks leading to the public release.
> 
> ??? Plan 9 was released Open Source in 2000. 

Summer, June/July, IIRC.  I've done a couple of look-ups since.  There's
been little additional news or information (I'm not saying none, I'm
saying little).  OpenBSD, a relatively little-known free 'nix, gets
rather more press and community coverage.

While there's nothing wrong with a small, dedicated core, I'm just
commenting that there doesn't appear to be much broader appeal.

> > The license is *not* OSI certified, nor is it considered Free Software
> > by the FSF.
> 
> <shrug> Ask me if I care.

A fair number of people respect the opinions of the OSI and FSF, if only
because they don't feel like combing through licensing terms themselves.
I'm active on the OSI's license-discuss list, and see quite a few
proposed licenses and terms.  I'm rather convinced that novelty, all
else being equal, is bad.  Compellingly adventageous licensing language
may be of some interest.  The MozPL is the last license I'd consider to
have provided this (it's a community-friendly mixed-mode copyleft +
proprietary use license).

Poor licensing choices are one of several key modes of failure for free
software projects.  If Plan 9 procedes forward, I expect to see another
two or three significant licensing revisions.

> Read Lessigs "Code".

At my side.  What specifically?

> > >  - Filesystem is fully transitive, everything is treated like a file.
> > >    This creates some unique opportunities to make publicly shared but
> > >    privately maintaned resource pools. Hangar 18 is an attempt to do
> > >    just this.
> > 
> > What does this mean?  How does this compare with,
> 
> Transitive means that A mounts B, C mounts A and gets B free. Plan 9 does
> this, managed by a set of authorization layers for fine control, native.
> This means that when Hangar 18 goes online you can mount /hangar18 into
> your filespace (via Plan 9 or Linux NFS services) and you will get all the
> resources that Hangar 18 mounts through that point. ftp is a good example.
> In Plan 9 you 'mount' the ftp server to your file system. If you ever go
> out and walk that part of the file space tree and request a file it only
> then goes and gets it. You can control its lifetime (to manage disk space
> for example) via local cache controls. A 'lazy update' mechanism, very
> efficient of network and local resources.

Interesting.  Some similarity then with the autofs system under
GNU/Linux, in which remote filesystems may be mounted by various
methods, including FTP, though transitivity isn't generally included
IIRC.

> > >  - Encryption (currently DES, needs fixing) built right in.
> > 
> > Built into what?
> 
> The network layer. The traffic between any two Plan 9 boxes is
> encrypted with keys dependent upon the individual boxes (or larger
> classes if you desire) if the system is so configured. You can also
> use this to encrypt branches of your filesystem. Plan 9 provides SSH.

Always or at discression?  Again, possible with GNU/Linux, though not as
trivial as desireable at present.

> But the passwords don't go across the network, therefore they're not
> 'used' in the conventional sense.

Interesting.  Somewhat like, say, SSH RSA key authentication, but at OS
level?

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>       http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?             Home of the brave
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