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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.
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.
should read the entire release. names of arbitrary length can already be handled by p9
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
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
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?
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?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."
That's cute - this person is "stalking" me on /. Really - you'll get tired of it after a while and I'm not really bothered anyway. You get the +1 by having 25 or more karma. I have the maximum of 50. Anyway I'm quite flattered you went to the trouble of registering that nick - but the novelty will soon wear off!
Video Game cheats, hints a
>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
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
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
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.
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.
two reviews of the license and no reviews of the software itself.
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?
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.
thats presuming the indention is mass market penetration.
Lucent use plan9 internally for many departments and it is used in some of their telephone systems.
It is a research OS and pegs itself as nothing more.
It has many unique features and because of that can be an influence in you rday to day projects.
I use the things I have learned from plan9 daily in my code.
Even just using wily & the rc shell on FreeBSD is enough reward for me.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
there are a few commercial operations using plan9.
;)
Bell-Labs for one
It's used in some of Lucents telephone products too.
With no Office Suite or even a web browser it's nto going to jump onto many people's desktop any day soon.
But I use it as my working environment, it has native python and perl as well as it's own C and shell (rc).
It's very groovy
particularly the plumber, forget file associations, the plumber uses regular expressions to decide what to run. Select some text (in *any* application) send it to the plumber and based onDjår rules it will do as you say. Very powerful
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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"