Plan9 is now Officially Open Source

DrSkwid writes "The OSI have approved the revised license for the plan 9 operating system according to attendees returning from this year's Usenix Bof."

Comments

How long until?

[rkz]

How long until SCO claim that SCO IP was stolen and put into plan9?

Re:How long until?

[thoolihan]

I know you're kidding, but this brings up an interesting question. IIRC, Dennis Ritchie worked on Plan 9. He also wrote the original Unix at Bell Labs. If he wrote certain functions similarly (as one would expect him to reuse code snippets he had successfully written before), could there be intellectual property issues. Could a company in SCO's position claim that he has to completely avoid writing anything that similar to the code he wrote for a previous company?

Just a thought...

-t

Re:How long until?

[infinite9]

How long until SCO claim that SCO IP was stolen and put into plan9?

That's impossible. Plan 9 is from outer space.

Re:How long until?

[nozpamming]

In many countries in Europe, an employee retains the rights to his intellectual capacity and skills.

This does not mean that he can use all the material he produced at his former employer but it does mean that he can use his intellect how he sees fit. This would include finding solutions to problems that are part of his normal work. Now the big question is how much such "snippets of code" are normal work routines or real intellectual property of his former employer.

I would assume that, for programmers, there exist a great many problems that you would use similer code for. This would mean you should be able to use the same solutions used at your former employer for those same type of problems.

If a company finds a really innovative way of doing things there is always the possibility of taking the IP route: getting something patented. If you haven't done that and didn't keep your solution a tight secret, chances are it's too common to protect from copying or you didn't invent it in the first place.

Now, of course, the situation in the US is different than European countries and with respect to the law system on these kind of IP issues the US system may differ greatly. (I have been amazed many times before)

Cult?

[Bame Flait]

this year's Usenix Bof

Usenix Bof? Sounds like what happens when a bunch of greasy, miserable nerds decide to play doctor in the server room.

Re:Screenshots

[rkz]

It's not too shabby:

Plan 9 is designed around the basic principle that all resources appear as files in a hierarchical file system (namespace) which is unique to each process. These resources are accessed via a network-level protocol called 9P which hides the exact location of services from the user. All servers provide their services as an exported hierarchy of files.
Features
The dump file system makes a daily "snapshot" of the filestore available to users

Unicode character set support throughout the system

Advanced kernel synchronization facilities for parallel processing

ANSI/POSIX environment emulator (APE)

Plumbing, a language driven way for applications to communicate

Acme - an editor, shell and window system for programmers

Sam - a screen editor with structural regular expressions

Support for MIME mail messages and IMAP4

Security - there is no super-user or root, and passwords are never sent over the network

Re:Screenshots

[agrounds]

it's the bunny rabbit that lends itself to the business-saavy of this OS!

must.. have.. the bunny OS!!

More information

[PhysicsGenius]

Screenshot
Latest release notes
Download the source (Warning: requires identification--privacy advocates maybe be excluded here)

This is really great news for Linux. For too long we've been trapped in the out-moded hierarchical/graphical paradigm. Plan 9, with its revolutionary "factotum" and "secstore" structures, could really provide a breadth of fresh hair to the Linux kernal, putting it head and shoulders above Windows.

Plan 9?

[micromoog]

What is Plan 9, anyway? All I could gather from the website before it was slashdotted into oblivion is that their logo is really fucking cute.

Re:Plan 9?

[BJZQ8]

So far as I have experience, Plan 9 is the way computers will all be run, someday at least. With everybody having a 50 THz machine on their desktop, obviously everybody doesn't need that speed at once. So if your neighbor that just browses the web doesn't need his CPU cycles, you can use his for your Doom XXVII game. If he needs some, your computer can give them to him. Obviously there are big latency and permissions issues to be solved, but it is very good in principle.

Re:Plan 9?

[William Tanksley]

It's Bell Lab's design for the successor to Unix, learning from Unix's successes and failures.

Instead of everything being a file, everything's a file system. Instead of processes communicating through pipes, everything communicates through plumbing (like a cross between pipes and an email system).

It's tiny, coherent, and elegant. I really hope we see more of it.

-Billy

Re:Plan 9?

[spitzak]

Far more important than the distributed processing is the "everything is a file" method of accessing all information outside of a process.

This is a huge deal, it is a real object-oriented system interface. All these proponents of COM and Corba and .net and all that other wannabe stuff should pay attention: "object oriented" is meaningless unless the "methods" match between the objects so they can be substituted for each other. Plan9 does this (so did original Unix before they added ioctl and sockets). In Plan9 all objects have "read" and "write" methods (and a few others) and can be reused. Now some people will scoff and say that that is not the type of methods they want on their objects, but they fail to realize that if they build their methods atop these they will be able to reuse any of the base objects. The files also provide a usable method of copying an object from one point to another that respects the actual size of these objects and the fact that executable code typically does not work on any machine other than the one it was supposed to be on.

Plan9 is really cool

[Anonymous Coward]

It is sooo coool. It is more than just a typical OS. Is is a distributed OS. Really. Not a cluster like you often think about. Before you look at the screen shots and say "boy, that looks crappy", read the design.

Re:Screenshots

[Daemonik]

Yes, you're absolutely right. A screenshot is irrefutable evidence of the basic structure of an operating system.

Indeed, untill I had seen a screenshot or two, I had no idea how to write in C, now I'm rewriting Linux from a monolithic kernel to a micro kernel, thanks to the power of screenshots!

DAMMIT

[hatrisc]

dammit.. another operating system to try out.... and only 2 computers.

excellent

[Boromir son of Faram]

This is great news for the Open Source community. While Plan9 is often rediculed as being outdated, it no doubt has its share of novel and useful algorithms, which may now be incorporated into more mainstream open source OSes such as Linux and the HURD (yes, it's still around).

Open sourcing OS code has proven to be a good way to keep ailing systems relevant in the current marketplace. It kept BeOS and VMS from dying in obscurity, and even helped BSD limp along for a few more years.

I predict nothing but good things from GNU/Plan9. Hopefully Debian will introduce a Plan9 distro, to go with their Darwin, HURD, and Linux distrii. I still have a few spare boxen lying around that I could use this on.

Re:excellent

[Mr. Frilly]

I wouldn't call it rape and pillage.

I'd call it learning from previous experience and survival of good ideas. One of the great things about open-source is that great ideas don't have to die with the project they originated in.

First TRON now plan 9.

[will_die]

With TRON and now Plan 9 falling into the hands of OSS the move to have the operating systems of computers taken over by old sci-fi movies is happening.

LOLOLOLOL *wiping tears from eyes*

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah... another slashbot humour cliche is born. *sniff* WE WILL HAVE SCO JOKES FOR YEARS! REJOICE IN THE NETWORK-TV-LIKE LACK OF ORIGINALITY!

Beowulf clusters of those! SCO claims infringement! Hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants!

The only problem w/ the Plan9 OS...

[drgroove]

Is the fact that, while the entire OS was mapped around Dennis Ritchie's involvement, he died halfway through the making of the OS.

Eventually, a bad double - in the form of the CEO's dentist - was brought in to replace Ritchie - the result being that the first half of the Plan9 OS is decent, but the last half is just terrible.

Oh, and it turns out that the CEO is a cross-dressing lunatic, whose obsession with C-grade OSes (like BeOS, NetBSD, NeXT, Apple OS9, OS2 Warp, etc) eventually led to him living out the rest of his life if relative obscurity and poverty. Sad, really... but, it might make a decent movie... nah.

excellent news

[jacquesm]

After the QNX thread a bit ago, this is probably the best news possible. Plan 9 is a nicely evolved version of UNIX, it is very scaleable, and 'orthogonal' (you can run a new version of the window manager in a window in the old one!).

If there ever was a viable alternative to the monolithic unices then Plan 9 is probably it.

Macro kernels are pretty much like turtles and sharks, very well adapted to living today, but dinosaurs nonetheless. Let's give this one the attention it deserves and see how it stacks up against the 'hurd', time to evolve !

Long term, does this mean anything?

[Jack William Bell]

My first subject line was 'Cool', but then I changed it. Why? Well, I have been interested in Plan 9 for a long time. I especially like the services-based architecture. In many ways it is a project with an awful lot of potential. But...

Problem 1: What is it good for? Right now Plan 9 has no compelling applications and a dearth of the applications most people use daily. This might be fixed soon as people port things like OpenOffice to it, but don't hold your breath.

Problem 2: It is a research tool, and may never be more than that. Chances are, any truly compelling features in Plan 9 will soon find their way into Linux and even MS Windows.

Problem 3: Overcoming the installed base. It took Linux nearly ten years to achieve name recognition, and it still is running a distant third on the desktop. What does Plan 9 offer that would make me, or you, want to spend time installing and learning it? Especially considerint Problem 2 and Problem 1.

Problem 4: Wrong direction. In my opinion the real important projects right now are ones that are removing the distinctions between OSs. Cross platform tools like Python, Chandler, Mono and Mozilla. Using standards-based DHTML as the UI. Why add another platform to the mix when the real goal is to become platform agnostic?

It all sums up to the same issues that squeak smalltalk has: Everything about it is great, but no-one uses it for anything real.

Of course all these problems I describe are based on my opinions, needs and preferences. Your mileage may vary. But I be most people's won't...

Re:Long term, does this mean anything?

[tuffy]

Problem 4: Wrong direction. In my opinion the real important projects right now are ones that are removing the distinctions between OSs. Cross platform tools like Python, Chandler, Mono and Mozilla. Using standards-based DHTML as the UI. Why add another platform to the mix when the real goal is to become platform agnostic?

What good is being platform agnostic if all platforms are completely homogenous? Clearly Plan 9 isn't going to take over the world, but that was never the point. What is important is that the best aspects of Plan 9 can be incorperated into existing platforms like Linux and *BSD and generate some real innovation without too much disturbance to the existing software base. Because it sure looks like the deeper innovations coming out of Plan 9 are more helpful to me than the more superficial stuff coming from Gnome/KDE.

Re:Long term, does this mean anything?

[F2F]

Problem 1: What is it good for? Right now Plan 9 has no compelling applications and a dearth of the applications most people use daily. This might be fixed soon as people port things like OpenOffice to it, but don't hold your breath.

it's good for research. an antidote to Systems Software Research is Irrelevant.

Problem 2: It is a research tool, and may never be more than that. Chances are, any truly compelling features in Plan 9 will soon find their way into Linux and even MS Windows.

Judging by how hard it is to bring Private Namespaces to Linux I can tell you that some of Plan 9's concepts will never make it back to UNIX. Some things in UNIX' design are just too hard to fix -- that's why Bell-Labs started this radical new OS (14 years ago).

Problem 3: Overcoming the installed base. It took Linux nearly ten years to achieve name recognition, and it still is running a distant third on the desktop. What does Plan 9 offer that would make me, or you, want to spend time installing and learning it? Especially considerint Problem 2 and Problem 1.

Plan 9 does not want to be a desktop OS but a research one. Its goal is not to crush Microsoft, it simply wants to fix the problems that cannot be easily fixed in UNIX today.

Problem 4: Wrong direction. In my opinion the real important projects right now are ones that are removing the distinctions between OSs. Cross platform tools like Python, Chandler, Mono and Mozilla. Using standards-based DHTML as the UI. Why add another platform to the mix when the real goal is to become platform agnostic?

to quote: "That's the good thing about standards -- there's so many to choose from"...

FSF take?

[lethe1001]

the FSF has commentary on a variety of open source lisences. according to them, the plan 9 license did not qualify as a free software license, for a variety of reasons, the worst of which is a clause allowing Bell Labs to restrict and revoke your license under certain unreasonable conditions. see this

i wonder if this new revised license has fixed any of those problems?

here is the statement from RMS.

When I saw the announcement that the Plan 9 software had been released as "open source", I wondered whether it might be free software as well. After studying the license, my conclusion was that it is not free; the license contains several restrictions that are totally unacceptable for the Free Software Movement. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.)

I am not a supporter of the Open Source Movement, but I was glad when one of their leaders told me they don't consider the license acceptable either. When the developers of Plan 9 describe it as "open source", they are altering the meaning of that term and thus spreading confusion. (The term "open source" is widely misunderstood; see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/philosophy/free-software-fo r-freedom.html

Here is a list of the problems that I found in the Plan 9 license. Some provisions restrict the Plan 9 software so that it is clearly non-free; others are just extremely obnoxious.

First, here are the provisions that make the software non-free.

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.

This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right.

and may, at Your option, include a reasonable charge for the cost of any media.

This seems to limit the price that may be charged for an initial distribution, prohibiting selling copies for a profit.

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,

This seems to say that when you redistribute you must insist on a contract with the recipients, just as Lucent demands when you download it.

1. 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.

This seemed reasonable to me at first glance, but later I realized that it goes too far. A retaliation clause like this would be legitimate if it were limited to patents, but this one is not. It would mean that if Lucent or some other contributor violates the license of your GPL-covered free software package, and you try to enforce that license, you would lose the right to use the Plan 9 code.

You agree that, if you export or re-export the Licensed Software or any modifications to it, You are responsible for compliance with the United States Export Administration Regulations and hereby indemnify the Original Contributor and all other Contributors for any liability incurred as a result.

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 wro

Re:FSF take?

[the morgawr]

You do know that that's talking about the OLD lisence right? A quick search of the page for those pharses would have told you that.

It seems that this rewrite was an attempt to address Richard's concerns. That said I think some of these issues may still be valid, but IANAL.

Does this still make Richard Stallman cry?

[iamdrscience]

Was the Plan9 license ever changed? I know for a while the FSF had a page listing the reasons why they don't consider Plan 9 a "free" OS regardless of the openess of it's source (blah blah, difference between open and free, blah blah, speech, blah blah, gratis).

I think it'd be really great if Plan9 were released under a more "free" license.

...so basically I'm too lazy to use the internet to answer my questions... please find answers for me slashdot!

Re:Viral or free?

[IamTheRealMike]

If it's one of the viral types I don't want to accidently look at any of the code for obvious reasons.

The reasons aren't obvious. I've seen this myth before, notably from Microsoft employees. The idea that you can be "infected" by simply looking at GPLd code is nonsense. The GPL explicitly covers only derived works of the code. If you looked at a GPLd algorithm and reimplemented it, somebody would have a hell of a time arguing in court that it was "derived". This is doubly the case for the vast majority of GPLd code, which is written by people who don't have huge piles of cash and who probably have a disdain for the legal system as well.

The idea that some random geek, or even a big company, is going to sue you on a legal platform as wobbly as "judge, he looked at it, so the rest of his work is clearly based on ours" is somewhere slightly above absolute zero and in any case applies just as equally to proprietary code, as the case of SCO shows.

Ironically, proprietary code is generally far more "infectious". I work on Wine - if I were to have seen the Windows code, I would be immediately banned from working on it, indeed, probably I'd be banned from working on most GPLd code. The EULA for Windows is extremely vague about such things, and Microsoft have armies of lawyers and it's quite feasable for them to sue me or others on a virtually non-existant legal basis. The reverse is not true.

I see that this post has been marked as a troll. I'm not sure it was, but this FUD should not be propogated any further regardless.

Re:Movie

[uncoveror]

No, it's UNIX that came from outer space. Specifically, it came from the Roswell UFO. Microsoft has even used this alien technology for mind control

Do you read books?

[solidhen]

Most of the time you don't have the right to freely redistribute copyrighted material from books.

You don't want to accidently read a book for obvious reasons.

Basically, Plan9 is Unix done right.

[Moderation abuser]

It extends the "everything is a file" paradigm to it's proper conclusion and gets rid of root.

Will it take over the world and replace Unix? No but it has a lot of very good ideas which can help direct future Linux and Unix development.

Of Course

[w.p.richardson]

Consider this analogue from the music industry:

John Fogerty sued for sounding like John Fogerty!

Fortunately, he won that case, but who knows how a similar case in the computer industry would turn out?

License Compatability between Linux & Plan 9?

[FreeUser]

This is really great news for Linux. For too long we've been trapped in the out-moded hierarchical/graphical paradigm. Plan 9, with its revolutionary "factotum" and "secstore" structures, could really provide a breadth of fresh hair to the Linux kernal, putting it head and shoulders above Windows.

While it is nice that the new license conforms to the requirements of the Open Source folks, that does not mean it is compatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) under which Linux is written. Indeed, not even all free software licenses are compatibel with the GPL (though the vast majority certainly are), and as yet I have not been able to find any commentary from the FSF on whether the modified license qualifies as "free", much less is GPL compatible (the old one certainly wasn't, as RMSes comments posted to this thread quite definitely explain).

So, before getting too excited about Plan 9's potential contribution to Linux, we need to first find out whether or not the licenses are even compatible, so that code can be shared between the two projects.

Introduction to Plan 9

[dargaud]

While researching cluster software for my current project, I read some whitepapers showing the differences between Plan 9, Beowulf, Mosix and others. I recommend that read.

Plan 9 from Bell Labs

[leoboiko]

These news are funny when Slashdot's poll is "Worst Sci-Fi Movie Ever".

ESR has some info on Plan9 OS, wich include this footnote:

The name is a tribute to the 1958 movie that has passed into legend as âoethe worst ever madeâ, Plan 9 from Outer Space. The legend is, unfortunately, incorrect, as the few who have seen an even worse stinkeroo from 1966 called Manos: the Hands of Fate can attest.

Plan 9 Wiki

[Chalst]

Very nice. Shame my laptop won't work with Plan-9, I was tempted to put a copy on it.

If you found the Plan-9 FAQ but saw the URL to the Plan-9 wiki was broken, try http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/plan_9_wiki/ .

Re:I tried Plan 9

[nickos]

"What would really be cool is if some of the GUI concepts made it over to Linux..."

They already have. Have a look at these:
9wm - a window manger that acts like 8 1/2 from Plan 9
Wily - a clone of Plan 9s programmers editor, Acme (v cool)
There's also WindowLab, another window manager which uses the same window resizing system as Plan 9.

I'm sure there's more that I don't know of...

Re:Umm,

[russcox]

I put the file there.

Our web server and FTP server serve the same files. /hidden is the exception to the rule, meaning that you can't list that directory using the FTP server (or the web server). We use it for things we don't want people stumbling upon. The license files were kept there when we were doing the initial OSI approval, and we just haven't moved them yet.

Re:Viral or free?

[russcox]

I thought viral and free were the same. At least in the case of the GPL they are.

I worked on this license. It is NOT viral.

It's basically the IBM license but changed not to be viral. Contributions must be covered by the same license, but that only applies if you declare your changes to be a Contribution.

If you want to take the code and go work on a closed project, no problem.

Re:Open Source, only in US and Canda

[russcox]

This is NOT true.

We do IP address checks to make sure you're in a country that the U.S. allows us to export crypto to, and that is all.

Re:I tried Plan 9

[1010011010]

There's occasionally talk on LKML of using 9P, the universal Plan9 protocol, in Linux.

9P is the filing protocol, but *everything* in Plan9 is a file, so it's a universal protocol. It allows you to do things like nest devince namespaces, so you can have windowing systems inside windowing systems without any extra work.

Winners and Losers

[SteveM]

Fortunately, he won that case, ...

Yeah, but he also lost!

SteveM

You are as disingenuous as SCO

[FreeUser]

Don't talk about compatable. GPL isn't compatable with BSD license, so we can't use your guy's code. You guys can take all you want, but we can't take. I like how GPL is "free".

Please.

First, which part of "this will contribute to Linux" didn't you understand? Linux has absolutely nothing to do with the FreeBSD license, so spreading your divisive nonsense in this thread is woefully off-topic.

Second, the FreeBSD license is perfectly compatible with the GPL. It is also compatible with Microsoft's proprietary license, not to mention anyone elses. The fact that the GPL isn't compatible with FreeBSD (meaning you can't take GPLed code and incorporate it into FreeBSD-licensed code), and the fact that Microsoft's proprietary license is likewise incompatible, is entirely irrelevant.

Indeed, that one-way compatability was a deliberate decision made by the FreeBSD folks...who valued the developer's freedom to incorporate their hard work into proprietary products over the protection of the freedom of future developers and users. Which is a perfectly legitimate stance to take, though it just so happens to be in disagreement with the decision by the GPL folks to protect their users and derivative developers freedoms above even their own.

It is extraordinarilly disingenuous to criticize one free licenses philosophy and imply it to somehow be improper, when the very same license has led to FreeBSD code being included in products which protect neither the developers, nor the users freedom, such as Microsoft's usage of the FreeBSD network stack. Before lambasting the thousands of volunteers who have contributed millions of man hours for FREE, to enhance your FREEDOM, merely because you disagree with the aspects of freedom they choose to emphesize over the ones you would emphesize (if any, which I find questionable in this particular troll), perhaps you would like to address the use of FREE code in products that strip all said FREEDOMs away? Until you justify lambasting the 1-way compatability between two free licenses while ignorning the same 1-way compatability between FreeBSD and virtually every proprietary license, your entire argument devolves to hypocritical grandstanding, misinformation, and spin.

The GPL is free. FreeBSD is free. In different ways, with different protections, different emphesises on different aspects of freedom, and with different consiquences. Most of us who use FreeBSD are perfectly comfortable with this, and understand the differences that are part of the diversity of our community. Most of us who use GNU/Linux are likewise understanding and appreciative of both schools of thought, and can recognize the advantages and limitations of both.

It is only the few zealots on either side, and much more commonly divisive trolls like yourself, for whome this concept poses such difficulty.