9fans archive / 1998 / 09 / 97 /    prev next

From: Digby Tarvin digbyt@acm.org
Subject: [9fans] Will I ever use Brazil ?
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 11:52:35 +0100 (GMT/BST)

>
>As I've said before on this list, don't read too much into the name
>change.  People here continue to develop and run a lineal descendant
>of Plan 9 second edition; it's called Brazil.  Some things have
>changed, but I doubt that any user of second edition would be shocked,
>stunned and flabbergasted if confronted with Brazil.  Anybody who
>thinks Plan 9 withered up and died inside Bell Labs after the second
>edition release is dreaming.
>
>Did you consider Unix abandoned after the Fifth Edition release?
>after the Sixth Edition release?
>
Forgive my ignorance, but I don't recall seing it explicitly
stated anywhere - I assume the version of Plan 9 I am running
(ie on the 1995 CD-ROM) is second edition, is that correct?

Presumably the name change was a marketing decision, given that
the system was going commercial, the cost of source was being
increased by no small amount, and 'Plan 9' doesn't sound like
a marketable name.

Perhaps we should all just start calling our Plan 9 systems
'Brazil zeroth edition' in order to feel more supported.

It is a pity Lucent can't find a way to make more effective use
of the non-commercial Plan9 users by keeping them current
and producing useful third party code for Brazil.
I would dearly love to see Brazil recognised for the technical
superiority it obviously has over certain more prevalent but
idealogically broken systems.

It seems like such a waste to target only embedded systems.
Or could it be that the thought of taking on the evil empire
is just too daunting.

Regards,
DigbyT
-- 
Digby R. S. Tarvin                                              digbyt@acm.org
http://www.cthulhu.dircon.co.uk