Bell-Labs Releases New Version Of Plan 9

F2F writes "Plan 9 from Bell Labs Fourth Release was announced yesterday marking a major overhaul of the entire operating system. VMware images are now supported, together with hoards of new hardware. The operating system now sports a new security model (on top of the old one, which was already quite secure), new network-resident secure storage system and improvements in the thread library, among others. See the release notes here: release4 notes or simply go to the download page at: plan9 download." T. adds: erikdalen sent in these links to critiques of the Plan 9 license from Richard Stallman and Nathan Myers.

Comments

UI

[GypC]

Plan9 has some really cool ideas, the more Unix than Unix everything-as-a-file paradigm, the network transparent file system, directory merging, the list goes on and on.

But I just can't get past the mouse-intensive UI. I absolutely hate it.

too little, too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Plan 9 could have made an impact 10 years ago if it had been free, but the window of oppurtunity is gone. Outside of a few die hard experimenters there are very few who have either a need or interest in Plan 9. I can attest to this by my own personally experience: I'm a user of another unsuccessful OS which missed the boat of oppurtunity. You don't get a second chance in this industry. Miss the brass ring and game's over.

Re:neat idea

[sysjkb]

>He didnt know if anyone was actually using this in the real world though, does anyone here? Ncube uses Transit, a Plan 9 derivative. Ncube made MPP supercomputers "way back when" and now are famed for their gargantuan video-on-demand systems. Larry Ellison is the owner. --Jeffrey Boulier

Re:If you don't like their license...

[Dr. Awktagon]

I think the points were 1) Lucent is claiming it's an "open source" license when it is not (and the term "open source software" is a registered mark, I believe). And 2) if you are considering using this OS, especially in a commercial setting, it is vitally important to understand the license, because it tells you what rights you get or give up by downloading the software.

When people are offering you something for free, it's pretty rude to complain that they're not offering you even more.

They aren't offering it "for free", they are offering it "with strings attached".

Stop the license bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

If you turkey brains would start discussing the concepts and ideas behind Plan9 instead of the stupid license issues, then that would go a long way towards making Slashdot suck a whole lot less. Thank you.

VSTa

[erikdalen]

An OS that is worth checking out if you like the ideas in Plan 9 is VSTa. It is a GPL'ed OS borrowing a lot of ideas from Plan 9. It's microkernel. But not as mature as Plan 9. /Erik

Re:Richard Stallman's vision QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bunch of crap. Yeah, Europe really embraced the concept of personal liberty and freedom during the 4th to 18th centuries. Ever heard of KINGS?

Well, I guess you're right. Of course, there were little bits here and there, starting with a limitation of the King's power in the 13th century with the Magna Carta, then the English Civil War, resulting in regicide and an electable parliament in the 17th century, oh yes, and all those rules like "innocent until proven guilty" trial by jury, banning of torture, goodness knows where America took all that from. The protestant reformation in Germany in the 16th century. The French revolution in the 18th "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".

Hm, maybe not so right! And let's ask ourselves how free America really was. Early on, the amount of federal power reassigned to states and settlements meant horrendous denials of liberty from the Puritan movement. More currently, being black excluded you from the glory of equality throughout the country until the 1960s!

Or how about the strict separation of classes? There was ZERO chance to lift yourself out of a lower class into an upper class.

Should have told my great-grandfather that, he built a theatre business up in late 19th century Britain. That was merely a counterexample to "ZERO" -- no-one's denying the awful separation of classes. Which exists in America today. Open your eyes on your next walk/drive to work, to see what different kinds of work people do.. ya reckon they'll all be running the country in 20 years time, if they try hard enough? Bush Sr, Bush Jr. Exactly.

Europe is stuck in the concept of "everyone must know their place". Maybe someday they'll embrace the concept of liberty and freedom and catch up with the US. But to do that, they have to shed Socialism, which is incompatible with freedom.

Since that remark was qualification-free, I'll ignore it. I assume you've never lived or worked in Europe. And what rights does a US citizen get that a UK one doesn't? Apart from more paperwork for gun ownership, but even the police don't get guns in the UK :-). Hm, drugs, prostitution, victimless crimes to a capitalist, right? I guess Holland beats the US on that. The right to freedom of speech.. Spain has a strong communist party.. can't naturalise in the US if you've ever had communist ties.. one more point for Europe. The Data Protection Act -- the EU version of the right to privacy -- got that? Nope, thought not, any company/individual can play with your personal info there. Want more examples?

There is a reason that so many people try to leave Europe and emigrate to the US. It's because the intelligent people want to be rewarded for hard work, rather than work to support a bunch whiny eurotrash who think that everyone owes them something.

I wanted to once, until I actually stayed there a while. Sorry. I didn't feel the US rewarded for hard work, but for profit-making work. Anyone can get rich/powerful (hell, I know I can), but that's all been done before, by amoebae, dinosaurs, monkeys and cavemen -- where's the challenge?

It's funny how there isn't a huge demand to emgrate from the US to the European paradises, isn't it?

I don't know the figures, I certainly know of quite a few who have moved to the UK. For its contrasting peacefulness, mostly. I'd say the prime reason for this is that the US is taught that the US is best from school onwards, and convinced that there are no (good) alternatives. Meanwhile, most Europeans are left to make their own decisions.

Beauty is only skin deep.

[Anonymous Coward]

As many others have already explained well in their posts, plan9's strengths are not about that. This is not trying to be the next OS X, Gnome, KDE, what have you. Not that a prettier GUI wouldn't hurt, but it's not (and shouldn't) be their top priority- GUIs have been done to death, they would be wasting their research dollars. Instead, they are trying to bring something brand new to the realm of computing.

Interesting question

[kraf]

How does the plan 9 resident storage compare to the QNX qnet transparent network storage ?