Linux-kernel mailing list archive 1999-20,: Re: Plan-9 is definitely _NOT_ a failure (Re: Ken Thompson interview in IEEE Computer magazine (fwd))

# Re: Plan-9 is definitely _NOT_ a failure (Re: Ken Thompson interview in IEEE Computer magazine (fwd))

John Kennedy (jk@csuchico.edu)
Wed, 19 May 1999 12:12:58 -0700

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On Wed, May 05, 1999 at 08:57:34AM -0500, John Fulmer wrote:
> I knew I would have to put on the fireproof undies for that one :) ...
> My actual meaning of "failure" is that of Ken Thompson's meaning of "not
> successful": Plan9 is not and will not be a commercial success. It's not
> marketed and little used in the business sector. At any rate, it never
> took off like it was hoped.
>
> Technically, I understand Plan 9 is a very elegant and well done design...

Once upon a time, just before Plan9 was released to Universities, I went
to a USENIX microkernel conference up in Seattle where Plan9 was being
compared against Mach, NT (!) and a few other popular kernels of the time.

The first half-day was factual, with various people giving factual stats
about their kernels, overhead, footprint, etc. Then the microsoft
droid came on and gave us a sales pitch! Marketing slides, the whole
nine yards -- totally non-technical, total drivel. Compared to all the
previous presentations, it was totally off-topic.

At that point, the people from AT&T had already proven that they
were going to be lively and interesting from their introductory talks,
and I didn't want to ditch because you could see that the AT&T guys were
up to something -- they were whispering to themselves and running around
drawing on slides.

When it came time for AT&T to talk about Plan9, they had added a whole
new microsoft-slamming forward. One of them had hand-drawn a sales
chart (fat line down the `0' axis since they were giving it away),
expected growth (moderate), revenue (0), etc. He finished the intro by
welcoming microsoft into the 60's as I recall, and then got on with his
prepared presentation. (:

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