I spent the first week of 2021 learning an OS called Plan 9 from Bell Labs. This is a fringe operating system, long abandoned by its original authors. It’s also responsible for a great deal of inspiration elsewhere. If you’ve used the Go language, /proc, UTF-8 or Docker, you’ve used Plan 9-designed features. This issue dives into operating system internals and some moderately hard computer science topics.
Sounds like an excellent article for us!
Couple of paragraphs in and it seems the author of the article is a moralizing type who can’t appreciate or just let go a joke, what a shame.
That aside, it’s not a bad quick overview.
I’m not objecting to the author calling out an emotionaly stunted or far right “joke”. I think anyone who pushes freedom of speech with an anything goes attitude has a little learning to do.
Disagree. It’s okay to have some humour, and freedom of speech is a nice thing, too.
Besides, 9front seems to be left-wing project anyway. Anti-Nazi and BLM logos on the front page, Karl Marx as a part of the 9front base install, …
@j0scher
You disagree? I doubt the courts disagree and the last time I checked whataboutery is not a defence in law and the “both sides” argument isn’t only incorrect in science and law but completely discredited and reputation damaging. If you’re one of those Dunning-Kruger “wiseguy” types or a Nazi-lite or “Parler” type you can hack off.
Then there is this curiously persistent lack of understanding and self-awareness from you in another topic:
https://www.osnews.com/story/130942/tim-cook-effectively-endorses-donald-trumps-reelection/#comment-10404151
Which courts disagree? Is there a court for jokes now? What are even you talking about? Also, why are you digging up old posts of mine that have nothing to do with the topic? You seem to have lost yourself in some far-left Internet bubbles.
First, I dislike this “a week with X” concept. If you are a seasoned user, and want to talk about stuff in a series of articles, that’s one thing, but this is ridiculous. You can’t really go into an OS in a week. You need to work with it, otherwise you make mistakes, miss points, attempt to understand things from the wrong POV, and give a half-baked, occasionally wrong evaluation. Second, he’s not going to use 9front because of a bad joke? OK. How about banning Linux because Linus is a prick? Is this a technical discussion or a virtue signaling effort? I like 9front and I’m Jewish, don’t get offended on my account please. And, for the record, that image he’s bitching about was since removed.
But let’s see how much did this guy managed to learn. Sam? “The editing experience is like a worse Windows notepad”. It’s one of the best editors out there and my personal favorite, but it has a completely different concept than everything you are probably using and does have somewhat of a learning curve, like every good software should, which means it can’t be mastered in 2 hours. “Plan 9’s native terminal isn’t ANSI compliant”. Should it be? is that important? If you don’t know, then you’re out of luck, the writer just throws it in and moves along.
In a way it’s kinda amusing the way he is so locked into his way of thinking, that he judges everything plan9 does based on his POV. This is like a Rock fan going to a classical concert and complaining about the lack of drums, distortion and why is everything instrumental? did the singer have a day off? His constant bouncing between “I”, “you” and “we” to describe the user is only making this more jarring.
“Despite Plan 9’s world-view, a lot of stuff isn’t a file in the real world. A network is a network. A website is a website.” Also, my coffee cup is a coffee cup. If a network isn’t a file, what is it? explain. If a website isn’t a file (which it actually is), then what is it? Just saying “It’s not that in the real world” is, to quote Monty Python, not an argument, but simply a contradiction. He then clumsily tries to explain that despite that, it’s possible to abstract all parts of the system as a file and interact with it as such. So a network isn’t a file but it is? A website isn’t a file but it is? How about a “file” being just a collection of ones and zeroes on a hard drive but is being abstracted and used as a file? The section starts with “Despite Plan 9’s world-view…” and ends with “9p makes any resource presentable as a filesystem shareable anywhere in the world.” At this point I would return it marked in red with “please rewrite”. I understand what he’s trying to say, but his dismissive opening does not work with the description, and, he’s specifically ignores how *NIX systems abstracts networks etc. to not ruin his opening point, which he thens ruins himself.
It meanders along the rest of the stuff then ends with “Plan 9 is as filled with unpolished brilliance as Mozart’s Requiem”. Now, as a Mozart fan, this is offensive. He also compares it to La Sagrada Familia, raising up notions of a huge, baroque unfinished church. Plan9 isn’t baroque. It’s actually very elegant compared to most OS. And it’s definitely not “unfinished”. It was “finished” and in production use in Bell Labs, and can be occasionally found in the wild powering systems and networks. So the OS was finished. however, the world of technology isn’t finished, and any product that is in use needs to be updated, extended, fixed, changed. And its been done by, since the demise of Bell Labs, volunteer groups and other companies. Like any other open source project. Like Linux, or Open/Free BSD. Hey, both my Windows and Mac laptops’ OS was just updated, that unfinished piece of software.
And then he goes into the collapse of civilization, DRM and UFOs.
Well said. Thank you.
@Erez
The whiff of privilege talking. Just because an overt Nazi-ism wasn’t aimed at you doesn’t make it just a “bad joke”. it may just be an edgelord trying to get a rise out of people or wiseguy thinking they are more clever than they are but it wasn’t a joke if you are the person on the receiving end. “Jokes” like this get people killed. Being Jewish doesn’t get you a free pass for excusing Nazi-ism.
As for his opinions on Plan 9 he is welcome to them. I could just do without reading your bitching about his bitching.
Here we are on OSnews, up to our elbows in näzis and cömmies. I just can’t believe it.
@bubi
It makes a change from misogynists and tone deaf sociopaths.
I think the labels are worn out.