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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.
Support for electronic mail has been extended in many ways and now includes some new spam filtering tool
Is this the first OS to have spam filtering built right into it? Sounds neat, until they can really handle long file names.....
geek page at KY speaks
I've used Plan9 in the past, and while the new version does look good, frankly I find the GUI quite cheesy. It's just my opinion, but I wouldn't want a pastel-colored theme as my desktop. Also, with my experience with this alternative OS, it's difficult to work with. Maybe version 4 will be better... Who knows?
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
Considering one would have to be one heck of a hacker (cracker, etc, whatever...pick your adj, I don't want a debate!) to even figure out how to begin to go about hacking a Plan 9 system, I'd say it's a pretty secure OS.
The problems with the Plan9 licence generally do not bother much of the developers, even though occasionaly flamefests erupt on the plan9 mailing lists.
According to the people at Bell Labs, if the Lucent lawyers agree, Plan9's licence could immediately be changed to something more in terms with RMS' revolution.
Unfortunately those same lawyers have been petitioned quite so many times already.
Not to mention that it needs to be beaten by a big honkin' pretty stick.
Didn't they become Lucent Technologies a long time ago?
don't use their code.
When people are offering you something for free, it's pretty rude to complain that they're not offering you even more.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
...from outer space?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Now I can go confuse all my marginally OS-literate coworkers and friends, and be amused while they try to sort out OS 9, Plan 9, and MacOS9...
The entertainment possibilities are endless.
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.
Funny, last time I heard about Plan 9, it involved turning humans into zombies to take over the world. Guess plans really change when the R and D department is cut.
Plan 9 has the best OS mascot ever.
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
That's HORDES, as in the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan, meaning lots, not HOARDS as in a secret treasury. Also, for future reference, probably LOSE not LOOSE, and FAZE not PHASE are the words intended.
While it's cool, in a 70's kind of way that Plan 9 makes everything into a file, it's really pretty old hat. A file is a very kludgy, primitive notion compared to making everything into an object.
Making everything a byte stream is consistent - sure, great - but byte streams are pretty pathetic. Some kind of OO file system where everything is an object, and you can hook objects together would be something much cooler. Something kinda like a lisp machine combined with a persistent store, where you can operate on any object using standard language constructs.
So who gives a %&*#@ about Plan 9. Let it die.
RMS argued that the bit about "all your modifications are belong to us" was really denying you the rights he finds important. I beg to differ.
By the looks of things, there's no restriction on you modifying the gode, with the exception that you must make your modifications available to the company. This would be sort of like forcing everyone who hacks the linux kernel to send in patches, which could be a useful thing to do. But there's no restriction on people messing with the code in the first place.
I'm not saying this software is free by Stallman's definition, but perhaps this is not quite as bad as he makes it out to be.
OS competition, if nothing else, motivates everyone to write better software (unless you're a monopolist, but we won't get into that). As a linux partisan, I say "Bring it on"
I am officially gone from
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.
One of RMS's criticisms of the Plan 9 lisence is that:
Plane 9 lisence: Distribution of Licensed Software to third parties pursuant to this grant shall be subject to the same terms and conditions as set forth in this Agreement,
RMS: This seems to say when you redistribute you must insist on a contract with the recipients, just as Lucent demands when you download it.
The GPL states that: You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
So, it seems to me that RMS is criticising Plan 9's lisence for doing exactly the same thing as the GPL does. Can you say hypocrite, Richard?
Isn't the whole idea behind SOAP is that every object can be stored, streamed, messages using XML packets (i.e. byte-stream files) so everything-is-a-file isn't that far off the mark of where everything these days is headed?
that's the most retarded (literally) looking mascot ever.
Photos.
siri
From the license:
You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.
Stallman's point:
This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right
I'm not 100% sure I see his point. If you make use of the code for any purpose, and Lucent asks you for the changes you made, you have to give it to them. IANAL, but it seems that they just want to be able to see all changes that get made.
The rest of RMS's points make sense, and this clause:
The licenses and rights granted under this Agreement shall terminate automatically if (i) You fail to comply with all of the terms and conditions herein; or (ii) You initiate or participate in any intellectual property action against Original Contributor and/or another Contributor.
is truly awful. See the link from Nathan Myers for a well written explanation of just how bad this is.
Zapman
It is unacceptable for a license to require compliance with US export control regulations. Laws being what they are, these regulations apply in certain situations regardless of whether they are mentioned in a license; however, requiring them as a license condition can extend their reach to people and activities outside the US government's jurisdiction, and that is definitely wrong. The Export Administration Regulations refer to export from the US. So, if you're not in the US, and aren't exporting from the US, this term simplifies to, "Space intentionally left blank". Anyone who dislikes this term should take things up with the US government, not Lucent. Lucent just doesn't want to get in trouble with the .gov.
I'm no font nerd, but I imagine the group creating the software are completely unrelated to the creators of the font. Also, aside from the fact that code and font data can both be stored on a computer, what has the GPL got to do with copyright terms on fonts? IANAL, but if you sell something for profit (say you're Boeing selling an aeroplane) which uses components from another manufacturer (say Rolls Royce), then your client doesn't sue Rolls Royce if the plane falls out of the sky, but Boeing. If ya don't like it, put in a NO WARRANTIES clause. What software doesn't? Errr, "contributors shall have". That's any contributor. Not just Lucent. Which is exactly what the GPL provides, no?And before anybody gets confused - Plan 9 from Outer Space was a film.
Video Game cheats, hints a
A careful reading of the RMS criticisms seems overreaching. The criticisms are relatively minor, and his commentary appear to be wild overreactions from here. Admittedly, these terms could be repaired, and if it matters someday, they probably will be. But to characterize the license as unacceptable or worse seems to me to go way too far.
I'm not sure what's wrong at the end of the day with a retaliation clause -- such an idea might profit free software products. Imagine if suing someone for infringing a patent by distributing open source software required a company to retask all its servers to use new proprietary systems software.
RMS also complains about the clause requiring commercial distributions to indemnify the supplier as wrongful because it is "quite obnoxious" to require users to indemnify. That clause doesn't apply to users, of course, but only to commercial contributors.
The license is actually an IP monkey trap. It pretends to be open, tempting us all to invest our time and effort into the release. But it's actually very restrictive, and gives Lucent many ways to pull the rug out from under us once we've "trapped" ourselves by investing our time and effort.
If Lucent is serious about getting people to use the release, they need to offer it under some License which involves a true fair exchange. I'm surprised that this isn't self-evident to the Plan 9 developers.
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
This is where the GPL differs from the Plan 9 licence (or "Plane 9 lisence" if you prefer) and why RMS is not a hypocrite.
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.
Yeah right, as if some stoner like RMS could ever come into power with his half baked national socialist ideas.
That's about as far fetched as Adolf Hitler becomming chancelor or that dufus William Clinton becomming president.
Oh fuck, wait a minute! I think I just scared myself.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
No. There is nobody in the real world using this.
In the real world people use Microsoft Windows and Office. They upgrade their hardware and OS everytime a new version of Office comes out to be compatible. They don't really need any of the "new" features of Office or the latest OS or hardware, hell they haven't figured out how to use, or a need for, any of the latest "features" of those products for the last 6 years. But they do it anyway because they have to be compatible with their friends and co-workers and because their IT department tells them to.
Since Microsoft doesn't sell Plan 9, nor do they produce a copy of Office for Plan 9, nobody in "the real world" uses it.
No, this is not a troll, I'm just pointing out a very real fact about "the real world".
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
I'm always amused, well, maybe BEmused at the fact that some people seem to care more about the quality of the license than they do what the software does. Especially with something like Plan9 -- as far as I can tell, its a research/experimental operating system, not a global conspiracy to take over the world market for operating systems.
It kind of reminds me of political people of both the right and the left -- they evaluate solutions to problems first on the ability to adhere to the preferred political paradigm rather than the technical merits.
And its not that those questions aren't sometimes appropriate, I'm just surprised how often it turns up BEFORE someone asks if the technical merits might make what the license is a moot point.
...doesn't like the license he doesn't download Plan 9. There! Problem solved!
-- SIGFPE
"You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if distributed in any form, e.g., binary or source. Original Contributor and/or other Contributors shall have unrestricted, nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free rights, to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute such Modifications, and to grant third parties the right to do so, including without limitation as a part of or with the Licensed Software; and Original Contributor and/or other Contributors shall have the right to license or to otherwise transfer to third parties such Modifications without notice, obligation or recourse to You. You grant to Original Contributor, Contributors and their respective licensees all rights and licenses (including patents) as are necessary to incorporate the Modifications created or contributed and so distributed by You into the Licensed Software and to use, distribute or otherwise exploit such Licensed Software without payment or accounting to You."
is *very* troublesome because this means that lucent can go closed-source with your modifacations at some later point, and they are not obligated to "pay" your or the community back even if they use your code in proprietary licenses in future. This is the basic problem with asymmetric licenses like Plan9's, and NPL.
The Plan 9 License has changed since RMS registered his complaints about it.
The "agree to provide" clause no longer says "if used for any purpose" but rather "if distributed in any form, e.g., binary or source". This is basically what the GPL does too.
The "reasonable charge" clause is followed by a sentence that says you can charge whatever you want for products or services you've added.
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
Erik Dalén
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!
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. 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 UKEurope 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.
And you're posting this on... Slashdot. Right. You know, occasionally there are stories on here about Microsoft, and other big corporations. You should try reading one of those stories some time, and see whether US citizens feel enfranchised, or whether they actually feel the system is vastly biased in favour of the rich.
And last time I was in the States, I was actually struck by the number of pointlessly intrusive laws. Huge roads through the middle of nowhere had 50mph speed limits; people under the age of 21 weren't allowed to drink a beer - even at home; I bought a bottle of bathroom cleaner that said "it is a federal offence to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labelling"; my hosts even explained to me it was illegal to park my car facing the wrong way. Yay liberty and freedom.
If socialism is done through compassion, then I assume all European workers aren't taxed, they just hand in their money after they cash each paycheck, right?
t
two reviews of the license and no reviews of the software itself.
The Plan 9 license says:
I still don't see how this clause is Bad since it only applies to redistribution. Somebody clue me in.
I was pleasantly surprised and excited when I saw the story on the front page this morning- I tried to install release 3 when it first came out but was blocked by hardware imcompatability. The list now looks like I may have everything I need for 2 or more nodes.
But I've read through the comments all the way down into the unmoderated zone and the vast majority are trolling, whining and bitching about the license or RMS. Isnt this supposed to be news for nerds, when did it become an asbestos arena for armchair ip lawyers?
But it still says the license is terminated if you "initiate or participate in any intellectual property action against Original Contributor." To me, that's the big one. If they limited it to "any intellectual property action" involving the Original Code, then I might find it acceptable. But as it is, they're reserving the right to publish my science fiction stories without paying me or even attributing me. That's just ridiculous -- even Microsoft doesn't go that far!
Speaking as someone who occasionally tries to promote Linux/BSD and free software inside the science fiction community, I have to say that I personally agree that this license is unacceptable as it stands.
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.
I live in a so-called third world country, where Liberty is a choice between work hard or starve to death, in the best case. The GNU General Public License is the only oportunity for people like us (tha vast majority of the world) to get involved in the technological revolution, to learn, and to get a subsistence medium. Two and a half years ago, I even din't have a computer. Today, thanks to GNU/Linux, I have a skill, I can pay may college, and I eat. It wasn't easy (and it isn't) at all, but is the only chance we got here, and I thank to it. Is that socialist, or "un-american"? I don't think so. It's the most democratic thing in the IT world. And as long as you continue living in your bubble of shit, you'll never undestand it. Greetings from Argentina. Dario.
Now I am sad.
I'm really fuzzy on this, but wasn't there a follow-on to Plan 9 being developed by the name of Brazil? What happened to it?
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I'm having this same problem-
I assume you mean I should change it in the plan.ini, and not in X or win2k which makes no sense given the appearance of the display.
How do I modify that with it all fscked up? how do I boot rio-less?
I've read everything relavent on the bell-labs site, and learned a lot of other stuff- I'm installing it on another box with the floppy, but I'd like it to work in vmware too:)
~m
How does the plan 9 resident storage compare to the QNX qnet transparent network storage ?
I live in London, and the air quality here is appalling compared to most US cities I've visited - over there, I can actually *smell* the car fumes are cleaner...
Have to agree about transport though - despite the hassles of public transport in London, it is still easy enough to get around without a car.
God, I wish I had modpoints so I could mod that up. +5, Insightful, I think would be worthy of this comment. RMS is a stuck up tosser who thinks the world should be run how he sees fit. He's never really worked for a living in the real world, and would get a MAJOR come-uppance if he ever had to. If I were Lucent, I'd tell him to fuck right off. Then again, I'd tell him that anyway if he came round here telling me how to do my job.
"Information wants to be paid"
From a database/storage standpoint, it makes a
lot more sense to stream an object collection spliced vertically (column-wise?) rather than object-/row-wise.
america is free as in freedom, not free as in beer. someone has to pay for stuff. like our police, fire fighters, postal service, all the free shit we can request from the gov't (paid for by taxes, really) all things considered i don't mind paying.
-- "Put on your big girl panties and lift!"
Ok, I guess you missed the point of the sarcasm.
It's exactly because he is at an extreme whacko end of the spectrum that it is shocking to think that such a radical could be put into a position of power.
Relax, it's all just in fun. Nobody takes any of this crap seriously.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
The version of VMware tools they are using is incompatible. The display is unintelligible.