[9fans] Plan 9 rejected from GSoC 2012

[Anthony Sorace]

Folks:
Unfortunately, Plan 9 was not selected to participate in
this year's Summer of Code. There is an upcoming "rejected
orgs" meeting where folks will have the chance to hear
(very briefly) why and what can be improved, and I'll try to
make that and report back (it hasn't been scheduled yet).

Thanks to everyone who submitted ideas, volunteered
to mentor or help find students, or worked on the wiki. I'd
submit that the sorts of work we do to prepare for GSoC is
worth doing anyway - making it easier for newcomers to
use and contribute to the system. Keep it up!

If you're an eligible student, I'd still encourage you to
check out the list of accepted organizations[0]. There are
180 organizations participating this year, so you've got a
good shot at finding something else interesting going on.

And, of course, just because we're not in GSoC this
summer doesn't mean we aren't interested in getting new
contributors! Take a look at the materials we put together
for GSoC[1], get in touch, and help out.

Thanks again,
Anthony

[0] http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2012
[1] http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/GSoC/index.html

[t***@polynum.com]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 03:17:13PM -0400, Anthony Sorace wrote:
> Folks:
> Unfortunately, Plan 9 was not selected to participate in
> this year's Summer of Code.

I don't know the exhaustive list of rejected, but I would say that the
accepted one is enlightening.

And BTW, Plan9 is not the only one not here... I see many missing...

And as Anthony writes, this does not prevent any doing.

--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

[ron minnich]

coreboot got rejected too and we had 5 years in a row. Don't feel bad.
I think they're trying to make sure that they don't get the same
players year after year, which is a good idea IMHO.

ron

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Mar 18 16:32:12 EDT 2012, ***@gmail.com wrote:
> coreboot got rejected too and we had 5 years in a row. Don't feel bad.
> I think they're trying to make sure that they don't get the same
> players year after year, which is a good idea IMHO.
>

thanks, ron. that's reason enough to try again next year.

- erik

[Joseph Stewart]

So this all makes me wonder why some social aggregation group (aka stack
overflow or reddit/programming) or even just a big group of decentralized
nerds couldn't just do a variant of GSoC on our own.

Lining up mentors and mentees particularly w/o big biz or school backing is
kinda what open source is all about.

I guess what I'm saying is "could we do this on our own"? Maybe not having
Google behind the effort takes some of the air out of it... but maybe not?

-j

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net>wrote:

> On Sun Mar 18 16:32:12 EDT 2012, ***@gmail.com wrote:
> > coreboot got rejected too and we had 5 years in a row. Don't feel bad.
> > I think they're trying to make sure that they don't get the same
> > players year after year, which is a good idea IMHO.
> >
>
> thanks, ron. that's reason enough to try again next year.
>
> - erik
>
>

[John Floren]

I think being able to pay the students is what really makes GSoC work.
It adds an additional dimension that makes it a lot harder to just
say, "Oh, I'm bored with this, I quit".

John

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Joseph Stewart
<***@gmail.com> wrote:
> So this all makes me wonder why some social aggregation group (aka stack
> overflow or reddit/programming) or even just a big group of decentralized
> nerds couldn't just do a variant of GSoC on our own.
>
> Lining up mentors and mentees particularly w/o big biz or school backing is
> kinda what open source is all about.
>
> I guess what I'm saying is "could we do this on our own"? Maybe not having
> Google behind the effort takes some of the air out of it... but maybe not?
>
> -j
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun Mar 18 16:32:12 EDT 2012, ***@gmail.com wrote:
>> > coreboot got rejected too and we had 5 years in a row. Don't feel bad.
>> > I think they're trying to make sure that they don't get the same
>> > players year after year, which is a good idea IMHO.
>> >
>>
>> thanks, ron.  that's reason enough to try again next year.
>>
>> - erik
>>
>

[Joseph Stewart]

I guess I didn't realize there was pay involved. How about a kick-starter
approach? Think it'd work?

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:20 PM, John Floren <***@jfloren.net> wrote:

> I think being able to pay the students is what really makes GSoC work.
> It adds an additional dimension that makes it a lot harder to just
> say, "Oh, I'm bored with this, I quit".
>
> John
>
> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Joseph Stewart
> <***@gmail.com> wrote:
> > So this all makes me wonder why some social aggregation group (aka stack
> > overflow or reddit/programming) or even just a big group of decentralized
> > nerds couldn't just do a variant of GSoC on our own.
> >
> > Lining up mentors and mentees particularly w/o big biz or school backing
> is
> > kinda what open source is all about.
> >
> > I guess what I'm saying is "could we do this on our own"? Maybe not
> having
> > Google behind the effort takes some of the air out of it... but maybe
> not?
> >
> > -j
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sun Mar 18 16:32:12 EDT 2012, ***@gmail.com wrote:
> >> > coreboot got rejected too and we had 5 years in a row. Don't feel bad.
> >> > I think they're trying to make sure that they don't get the same
> >> > players year after year, which is a good idea IMHO.
> >> >
> >>
> >> thanks, ron. that's reason enough to try again next year.
> >>
> >> - erik
> >>
> >
>
>

[John Floren]

Kickstarter works because the people on Kickstarter are interested in
whatever the project is producing. A book, a video game, other
products. Plan 9 has a small community and an even smaller number of
people who actually use it. Unfortunately, I don't think there's
enough money there to pay for 1 GSoC-equivalent student, especially
considering that the project may turn out to be something the
contributors have very little interest in.

GSoC works great for Google because they have the money & organization
to do it. It builds good-will for them and helps them scout potential
employees while also (ideally) improving open source projects. The
only thing 9fans has out of that list is the interest in improving an
open source project :)

John

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:39 PM, Joseph Stewart
<***@gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess I didn't realize there was pay involved. How about a kick-starter
> approach? Think it'd work?
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:20 PM, John Floren <***@jfloren.net> wrote:
>>
>> I think being able to pay the students is what really makes GSoC work.
>> It adds an additional dimension that makes it a lot harder to just
>> say, "Oh, I'm bored with this, I quit".
>>
>> John
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 3:06 PM, Joseph Stewart
>> <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > So this all makes me wonder why some social aggregation group (aka stack
>> > overflow or reddit/programming) or even just a big group of
>> > decentralized
>> > nerds couldn't just do a variant of GSoC on our own.
>> >
>> > Lining up mentors and mentees particularly w/o big biz or school backing
>> > is
>> > kinda what open source is all about.
>> >
>> > I guess what I'm saying is "could we do this on our own"? Maybe not
>> > having
>> > Google behind the effort takes some of the air out of it... but maybe
>> > not?
>> >
>> > -j
>> >
>> >
>> > On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 1:35 PM, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Sun Mar 18 16:32:12 EDT 2012, ***@gmail.com wrote:
>> >> > coreboot got rejected too and we had 5 years in a row. Don't feel
>> >> > bad.
>> >> > I think they're trying to make sure that they don't get the same
>> >> > players year after year, which is a good idea IMHO.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> thanks, ron.  that's reason enough to try again next year.
>> >>
>> >> - erik
>> >>
>> >
>>
>

[erik quanstrom]

On Sun Mar 18 19:51:00 EDT 2012, ***@jfloren.net wrote:
> Kickstarter works because the people on Kickstarter are interested in
> whatever the project is producing. A book, a video game, other
> products. Plan 9 has a small community and an even smaller number of
> people who actually use it. Unfortunately, I don't think there's
> enough money there to pay for 1 GSoC-equivalent student, especially
> considering that the project may turn out to be something the
> contributors have very little interest in.
>
> GSoC works great for Google because they have the money & organization
> to do it. It builds good-will for them and helps them scout potential
> employees while also (ideally) improving open source projects. The
> only thing 9fans has out of that list is the interest in improving an
> open source project :)

i'm not ready to dismiss this idea. there are student, project, mentor tuples i'd
be willing to pony up gsoc-level money for.

- erik

[Calvin Morrison]

On 18 March 2012 20:37, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net> wrote:
> On Sun Mar 18 19:51:00 EDT 2012, ***@jfloren.net wrote:
>> Kickstarter works because the people on Kickstarter are interested in
>> whatever the project is producing. A book, a video game, other
>> products. Plan 9 has a small community and an even smaller number of
>> people who actually use it. Unfortunately, I don't think there's
>> enough money there to pay for 1 GSoC-equivalent student, especially
>> considering that the project may turn out to be something the
>> contributors have very little interest in.
>>
>> GSoC works great for Google because they have the money & organization
>> to do it. It builds good-will for them and helps them scout potential
>> employees while also (ideally) improving open source projects. The
>> only thing 9fans has out of that list is the interest in improving an
>> open source project :)
>
> i'm not ready to dismiss this idea.  there are student, project, mentor tuples i'd
> be willing to pony up gsoc-level money for.
>
> - erik
>

I am a student who would be interested in doing GSOC next year. In
reality it all comes down to getting paid though. Like someone
mentioned, very little work gets done on "free will", so gsoc is a
good approach. (especially implementing not so fun things nobody dares
touch)

[erik quanstrom]

> I am a student who would be interested in doing GSOC next year. In
> reality it all comes down to getting paid though. Like someone
> mentioned, very little work gets done on "free will", so gsoc is a
> good approach. (especially implementing not so fun things nobody dares
> touch)

that's one way of looking at it. another way of looking at it is that
the best jobs are the ones that you'd do anyway. and one could argue
these lucky people get the best job done.

- erik

[Calvin Morrison]

On 18 March 2012 22:04, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> I am a student who would be interested in doing GSOC next year. In
>> reality it all comes down to getting paid though. Like someone
>> mentioned, very little work gets done on "free will", so gsoc is a
>> good approach. (especially implementing not so fun things nobody dares
>> touch)
>
> that's one way of looking at it.  another way of looking at it is that
> the best jobs are the ones that you'd do anyway.  and one could argue
> these lucky people get the best job done.
>

Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
they are really invested in.

But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
support plan9 development?

If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.

Calvin

[t***@polynum.com]

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 10:09:30PM -0400, Calvin Morrison wrote:
>
> Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
> they are really invested in.
>
> But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
> support plan9 development?
>
> If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.

There is another parameter to take into account: real life, and
day-to-day necessity.

I wanted for years to redo the TeX distribution. And time has shown that
I was _really_ interested in it. It was on the stack. Always on the
stack. But priorities keep it not on the top of stack, that's all.

The money can simply not give interest in it---if this is the case, this
will be the wrong motiv---but opportunity to do it by increasing its
priority on the stack.
--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

[Tristan]

> that's one way of looking at it. another way of looking at it is that
> the best jobs are the ones that you'd do anyway. and one could argue
> these lucky people get the best job done.

as someone who's currently doing some of it anyway, work on plan9 would
be delightful. but i'm not so sure i'd get the best job done. with bug
fixes and the like i feel fairly confident in my code, but for extensions
and additions i often doubt my code is good enough for the distribution
(though it certainly seems less hard to read than most of the linux
device drivers i've read) maybe some mentoring would help, but even if
gsoc were happening i'm not elegible. and i would guess that i'm not one
of the students in erik's combinations ⌣ (assuming a closed set).

but, i'll continue what i'm doing regardless, and maybe another four
years will produce some nice code.

enjoy,
tristan

--
All original matter is hereby placed immediately under the public domain.

[erik quanstrom]

> Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
> they are really invested in.
>
> But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
> support plan9 development?
>
> If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.

your argument seems to me to be an all-or-nothing logical fallicy.

i don't think the fact that the plan 9 community is small is an indication
that it's not worth spending time on. if that were the case, i'd be looking
for a new job right now. as it is, we're hiring.

- erik

[Calvin Morrison]

On 18 March 2012 22:16, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
>> they are really invested in.
>>
>> But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
>> support plan9 development?
>>
>> If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.
>
> your argument seems to me to be an all-or-nothing logical fallicy.

But in the context of GSOC, it's all or nothing. People willingly
contribute small stuff, and hobby stuff. I see GSOC as a time where a
project can get a lot of work done, pay the developer, and make sure
they do it well.

I regularly contribute to a few small Open Source projects. If I could
get paid to do it, I would be spending a lot more time with the
project :-)

> i don't think the fact that the plan 9 community is small is an indication
> that it's not worth spending time on.  if that were the case, i'd be looking
> for a new job right now.  as it is, we're hiring.

I agree with this. In the linux world I help out with Trinity Desktop
Environment, a KDE3 continuation. I often see "small" being a bad
thing. Personally I love it.

Sorry for being misleading, sort of just rambling

Calvin

[andrew zerger]

It feels like the kind of thing I always wind up saying to someone who
"want's to learn about computers." .. You need a reason that you really
care about, or odds are you probably wont make it that far. Leading a horse
to water thing. Or else, you dont have a reason but by golly you can learn
and do anything, you can learn the particulars of some code and not have a
clue how you or anyone else would use it.


Like you say, you need to be invested.. either in the long time-scale curve
of 20-years r&d beats 15 years by 5 years of the t^2 curve of tech value
(or whatever.)

Or .. system programming isn't taught outside of grad-school ? I remember
being shown CPP in vo-tech but the curriculum going straight into API,
ignoring whatever else was taking place, people that care about YACC and
LEX and such things are either grad students or not in school at all- and
what are the troff guys that keep posting in here working on anyway that
you all want plan9 to deal with printers? :") Just curious, and rambling as
well.


And .. an abstract computer problem is way more interesting than ...
trying to cram all the widgets onto an infinite canvas before a post-API
programmer has a chance to muddle it up .. sounds like fun at first.. . ()

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Calvin Morrison <***@gmail.com>wrote:

> On 18 March 2012 22:16, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net> wrote:
> >> Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
> >> they are really invested in.
> >>
> >> But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
> >> support plan9 development?
> >>
> >> If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.
> >
> > your argument seems to me to be an all-or-nothing logical fallicy.
>
> But in the context of GSOC, it's all or nothing. People willingly
> contribute small stuff, and hobby stuff. I see GSOC as a time where a
> project can get a lot of work done, pay the developer, and make sure
> they do it well.
>
> I regularly contribute to a few small Open Source projects. If I could
> get paid to do it, I would be spending a lot more time with the
> project :-)
>
> > i don't think the fact that the plan 9 community is small is an
> indication
> > that it's not worth spending time on. if that were the case, i'd be
> looking
> > for a new job right now. as it is, we're hiring.
>
> I agree with this. In the linux world I help out with Trinity Desktop
> Environment, a KDE3 continuation. I often see "small" being a bad
> thing. Personally I love it.
>
> Sorry for being misleading, sort of just rambling
>
> Calvin
>
>


--
⎌⎺⎺├@┌␊├├≀-␍⎌␊▒␍:/␀⎺└␊/⎌␀⎺#

[steve]

I feel plan9 is the only thing worthy of me spending my time and effort on,
and i do (when i can).

-Steve


On 19 Mar 2012, at 02:16 AM, erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net> wrote:

>> Agreed - people do tend to perform better when working on a project
>> they are really invested in.
>>
>> But if that was true enough, wouldn't tons of people be stepping up to
>> support plan9 development?
>>
>> If not, then obviously it's not worth anyone's time.
>
> your argument seems to me to be an all-or-nothing logical fallicy.
>
> i don't think the fact that the plan 9 community is small is an indication
> that it's not worth spending time on. if that were the case, i'd be looking
> for a new job right now. as it is, we're hiring.
>
> - erik

[Anthony Sorace]

Reparenting.

> So this all makes me wonder why some social aggregation group
> (aka stack overflow or reddit/programming) or even just a big group
> of decentralized nerds couldn't just do a variant of GSoC on our own.

This is entirely possible. Other organizations who've previously been
involved in GSoC have done this - KDE being the most notable
example. Google provides some useful tools and examples from their
own experience with GSoC that would be helpful (for our community,
maybe more the knowledge than the tools, but who knows), and I'm
certain some of the Google, KDE, or other similar folks would be
willing to talk to us about how to get such a thing off the ground.

Yes, there is money involved. From memory, students get $500 when
they're accepted, $2,250 if they pass midterm evaluation, and another
$2,250 if they pass final evaluation. It's a decent (if unimpressive)
stipend for a sumer internship. Google's motto for the payments has
become "flip bits, not burgers". It's not about competing for top
talent on price, but rather allowing students who'd really like to be
coding for the summer to do so without worrying about where their
food (beer?) money will come from.

We do have some money sitting with Software for the Public Interest
(SPI) with our name on it from our previous participation with GSoC,
but probably only enough to sponsor 1.5 students at GSoC-ish rates.
SPI's also changed either their requirements or their enforcement of
them since we got that money in (part of why we don't have more in
there) which might make getting it out a bit tricky, but I'm sure it's
possible. I'll start figuring out how we can make that happen (which
we should know anyway).

My main concern is that to put on some kind of formal program,
we'd need a certain critical mass to make it worthwhile. I think it'd be
a bit silly to do this as a program (rather than just hiring a student for
a summer) if we couldn't host, say, a half-dozen students, at least.
Unfortunately, that's more than the total number of even half-way
respectable applications we got last year. Now, we had a few folks
commit to helping out with PR for this year's GSoC effort, had we
been admitted, so I imagine we would've done better this year.

I think if we can't get this level of participation lined up, with funding
to back it, we're not really talking about a Sumer of Code style
program, and are really talking about some sort of organized
"bounty" system (where, say, Kickstarter might be a better fit).
That's okay, although their success is more spotty than GSoC's.

So that brings me to my two main questions for a hypothetical
Summer of Plan 9:

1) Participation
Do folks believe (based on knowledge of actual students, not
just "of course Plan 9 is awesome!") that we could get some
promising students interested in participating in such a
program for the summer? Understanding that it'd have less
resumé value than a Google-back project and the selection of
projects is inherently a bit more limited. Assume we could pay
roughly comparably to GSoC. I'm mostly interested in hearing
from folks with direct academic connections or other exposure
to actual candidates here.

2) Funding
Assume we'd look to fund 6 students at $5,000 each, and we
can get $6,000 from SPI. That puts us $24,000 short. Any good
ideas for where that'd come from? Anyone with good lines to a
prospective corporate backer? Keep in mind we don't currently
have a formal entity to handle the money (non-profit or
otherwise), which might put off some potential backers. Folks
may want to contact me off-list; I'll keep things (other than a
running total of potential funds) confidential until we're ready
to commit.

We have great mentors. I'd (humbly!) suggest that between Devon
and I we've got most of the org admin stuff pretty well down. Having
fired my main paying client, I've got some free time for interesting
tech work, and would gladly put that into getting all the infrastructure
working. If we can address the above two points by, say, the end of
March or very early April, I think we can make a run of it.

Anthony

[t***@polynum.com]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 11:50:54AM -0400, Anthony Sorace wrote:
>[...]
> So that brings me to my two main questions for a hypothetical
> Summer of Plan 9:
>
> 1) Participation
> Do folks believe (based on knowledge of actual students, not
> just "of course Plan 9 is awesome!") that we could get some
> promising students interested in participating in such a
> program for the summer?

May I suggest a more long term perspective?

I claim that Plan9 with kerTeX (that is finally starting to get the
impetus) gives the best distributed OS for science related
publication in the academic world. Not to mention OS study by itself.

So the more Plan9 (or derived) is used---and the TeX framework is
instrumental for this---, the more attraction it will have; and,
by mere statistics, the more potential about students. And the more

--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

[faif]

Τη Παρασκευή, 16 Μαρτίου 2012 8:36:46 μ.μ. UTC+1, ο χρήστης (άγνωστος) έγραψε:
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 03:17:13PM -0400, Anthony Sorace wrote:
> > Folks:
> > Unfortunately, Plan 9 was not selected to participate in
> > this year's Summer of Code.
>
> I don't know the exhaustive list of rejected, but I would say that the
> accepted one is enlightening.
>
> And BTW, Plan9 is not the only one not here... I see many missing...
>
> And as Anthony writes, this does not prevent any doing.
>
> --
> Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
> http://www.kergis.com/
> Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C



Τη Παρασκευή, 16 Μαρτίου 2012 8:36:46 μ.μ. UTC+1, ο χρήστης (άγνωστος) έγραψε:
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 03:17:13PM -0400, Anthony Sorace wrote:
> > Folks:
> > Unfortunately, Plan 9 was not selected to participate in
> > this year's Summer of Code.
>
> I don't know the exhaustive list of rejected, but I would say that the
> accepted one is enlightening.
>
> And BTW, Plan9 is not the only one not here... I see many missing...
>
> And as Anthony writes, this does not prevent any doing.
>
> --
> Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
> http://www.kergis.com/
> Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

It's a pity to see less novel (IMHO) operating systems like MINIX 3 being accepted, and Plan 9 being rejected...

[Paschke Christoph]

You know that Minix / Prof. Tanenbaum get > 2.4 Mio Euro from European Union to get an Europe side operating system running.
They were at the Nuernberg embedded fare. At the moment they migrate the x86 base to Arm. They got 2-3 students for that to work.
I think it is not only the GSoC, but also this support from EU. What I also like at Minix is the good documentation (books form Prof. Tanenbaum) you get about the system.

I also got some idea to get engaged with Minix especially according to the idea of the Microkernel and the reincarnation drivers etc. But one part I got shocked was the amount of RAM this system needs for nearly nothing and also the missing of nearly each hardware support. So, at Plan 9 you see the old profs around the Bell Labs at work if you compare that both systems.

Ok, for my understanding there is the difference between a reincarnation resource approach on base of a Microkernel and driver in user space (in Minix) or an file based distributed resource (in Plan 9), right? So, both ideas I find quite interesting alternative concepts, isn't it?

Before I started with Inferno some weeks ago, I still was quite sure to engage with Minix. Only not sure with this hardware and RAM issue at all. So, nothing with the system only needs 1 MB ... But I also get in good hope because the EU money funding. Money always turn the world.
But for me most important to see if things are going forward, projects are defined and getting done. That there is not such chaos everywhere that eachone doing anything and all doing nothing ...

So, I think most important to describe clearly the installation process that newbies not get a shock or give up already at the beginning.
Second: I believe it is important that the website is good readable for normal people, written from native english speaking people that everyone can understand well.
It is not a good idea at all if an installation description for example is written from people that have serious problems in expression or precise description of the processes in english words. In this way projects are already born to fail from beginning.

The Minix project will get a good start in this way, especially now after financing and after it is coordinated centrally by Vrieje Univerity. And such organizational fundamentals of a system, the Plan 9 group also should get working. I think need clearly write together the projects what ones like to work on, doing it with a clear native english description and the opportunity to get envolved. At the moment I get such chaotic feeling with Plan 9. Maybe I'm wrong?

Am 19.03.2012 um 10:35 schrieb faif:

> Τη Παρασκευή, 16 Μαρτίου 2012 8:36:46 μ.μ. UTC+1, ο χρήστης (άγνωστος) έγραψε:
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 03:17:13PM -0400, Anthony Sorace wrote:
>>> Folks:
>>> Unfortunately, Plan 9 was not selected to participate in
>>> this year's Summer of Code.
>>
>> I don't know the exhaustive list of rejected, but I would say that the
>> accepted one is enlightening.
>>
>> And BTW, Plan9 is not the only one not here... I see many missing...
>>
>> And as Anthony writes, this does not prevent any doing.
>>
>> --
>> Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
>> http://www.kergis.com/
>> Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
>
>
>
> Τη Παρασκευή, 16 Μαρτίου 2012 8:36:46 μ.μ. UTC+1, ο χρήστης (άγνωστος) έγραψε:
>> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 03:17:13PM -0400, Anthony Sorace wrote:
>>> Folks:
>>> Unfortunately, Plan 9 was not selected to participate in
>>> this year's Summer of Code.
>>
>> I don't know the exhaustive list of rejected, but I would say that the
>> accepted one is enlightening.
>>
>> And BTW, Plan9 is not the only one not here... I see many missing...
>>
>> And as Anthony writes, this does not prevent any doing.
>>
>> --
>> Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
>> http://www.kergis.com/
>> Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C
>
> It's a pity to see less novel (IMHO) operating systems like MINIX 3 being accepted, and Plan 9 being rejected...
>

[t***@polynum.com]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:47:46PM +0100, Paschke Christoph wrote:
>
> I also got some idea to get engaged with Minix especially according to the idea of the Microkernel and the reincarnation drivers etc. But one part I got shocked was the amount of RAM this system needs for nearly nothing and also the missing of nearly each hardware support. So, at Plan 9 you see the old profs around the Bell Labs at work if you compare that both systems.

Many years ago, I was attracted to "microkernel" by the very word,
thinking it was a "small" resources thing, that one could extend when
needed and only with what was needed. And the "big" surprise with
"micro" kernel is that they are huge; don't perform well unless a huge
amount is written in... assembly etc.

And I don't know if my english is at fault, but the paper about Plan9
seems to me to make fun of this academic frenzy about these huge
resources hog called microkernels, and that Plan9 can not attract such
attention and so many papers since it is not in the trend, and does the
job while being small...

If the U.E. has selected Minix, then it's sure: it's a dead end... They
have this gift (helped with lobbying) to always choose the wrong
direction.

--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

[Christoph Paschke]

Am 19. MÀrz 2012 um 13:10 schrieb ***@polynum.com:

On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:47:46PM +0100, Paschke Christoph wrote:
>
> I also got some idea to get engaged with Minix especially according to the idea of the Microkernel and the reincarnation drivers etc. But one part I got shocked was the amount of RAM this system needs for nearly nothing and also the missing of nearly each hardware support. So, at Plan 9 you see the old profs around the Bell Labs at work if you compare that both systems.

Many years ago, I was attracted to "microkernel" by the very word,
thinking it was a "small" resources thing, that one could extend when
needed and only with what was needed. And the "big" surprise with
"micro" kernel is that they are huge; don't perform well unless a huge
amount is written in... assembly etc.
 
Yes, this I also got the idea in comparison and wonder about! 



And I don't know if my english is at fault, but the paper about Plan9
seems to me to make fun of this academic frenzy about these huge
resources hog called microkernels, and that Plan9 can not attract such
attention and so many papers since it is not in the trend, and does the
job while being small...

If the U.E. has selected Minix, then it's sure: it's a dead end... They
have this gift (helped with lobbying) to always choose the wrong
direction.
 
Could be or not, who knows? 
Most cases EU does central shit, already called EUdSSR here in Germany what is other word for EU-SowjetUnion.
It is not chosen by the people, it has it's apparatchics at the head that regulates everything more and more ...

But as I understood Minix should be in first be a new realization of an industrial POSIX operating system in Europe and an educational system. I see Minix with the old webpage still before the embedded exhibition in Nuernberg and before this EU-Project started. So, this is going fast forward already. And they already looking for industrial partners. So, I as a potential client in the industrial area can work together with them quite easy. I not know if this will be similar with Plan 9 next years?

[t***@polynum.com]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 02:25:54PM +0000, Christoph Paschke wrote:

> [...] So, this is going fast
> forward already. And they already looking for industrial partners. So, I as
> a potential client in the industrial area can work together with them quite
> easy. I not know if this will be similar with Plan 9 next years?

Well, it is a matter of strategy. I claim that Plan9 will still be here,
when the E.U. (as _this_ political freak) has disappeared. And this at
most a matter of a couple of years, probably less.

If your choice on Minix is because it is backed by E.U., you should
question how long E.U. will last...

My choice on Plan9 (4th or derived systems) is based on technical merits
that I feel will still be true in the near or middle future...

--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

[erik quanstrom]

> If your choice on Minix is because it is backed by E.U., you should
> question how long E.U. will last...

silly me, i choose operating systems based on technical merit.
and last i checked government or meta-government support
is not an indicator of technical merit in solving my problems.

- erik

[t***@polynum.com]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:30:24PM -0400, erik quanstrom wrote:
> > If your choice on Minix is because it is backed by E.U., you should
> > question how long E.U. will last...
>
> silly me, i choose operating systems based on technical merit.
> and last i checked government or meta-government support
> is not an indicator of technical merit in solving my problems.

This is because you are not a patented european(TM). Because, if E.U.
had been based on "technical merits", it would have never existed to
start with...

E.U. as an OS is the example of the "thrashing" system: once you have
mastered last year legislation, you can not start working, because it is
obsolete and you have to load the "new(TM)", "improved(TM)" context...

--
Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
http://www.kergis.com/
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C

[Christoph Paschke]

>> and last i checked government or meta-government support
Ok, I do another example and maybe I'm a stupid German and I have lost the "just for fun" idea.

I see that more and more people get already VERY (and announcement is on VERY!) angry about all this chaos around.
I give you an example that can understand. If the electric socket would be invented today, what you believe how much of this electric plug typs would exist. I compare it with CARD-Readers. 100:1 ??? Yes sure, we would have 100:1 electric plugs today if they would have been invented today.

You not understand that people get

ANGRY ABOUT THAT MEGA-SHIT????

This is only one example. There are still more like electric loading of mobile phones and inkjet cartridges in 1000 variants. Do you really think people here in Europe find such things FUNNY? THEY HATE ALREADY WITHOUT END. They not want this 1000 + 1 shit anymore.

What is Mini-X? It's already like: I LIKE THE MINIMUM TO WORK, JUST TO WORK AND NOTHING ELSE.

Here some company chiefs already saying: We get back to engrave our e-Mails in stone if this goes forward such way.

This is for you not understandable that people already get crazy at this endless chaos???

So, Prof. Tanenbaum is going to win here in Europe because this global chaos becoming endless, unbelievable, intolerable.

So, is such a demand for a more unique system in Europe idiotic?

HOW ELECTRIC SOCKETS where made, from chaos brothers where each one only think of their own interests and ways of earning money? I not know, but maybe in NOT EU countries they like this chaos. Here, already people tired from that chaos and therefore Minix have a very good chance together with governmental support.

I not against Plan 9, I only want to explain here why a German as an EU member not so far from sympathize with the Netherland concept of Prof. Tanenbaum. And this is what he already says since years: This modern systems are not to get handled anymore: to complex, cannot be overseen anymore. As I remember he already gave a price in former time for somebody who can explain him the Windows XP-system.Nobody tried it, because CAN NOT! At the current state his statement seams to be true, that NOBODY AT THE WHOLE WORLD IS ABLE to explain the XP-system at whole. So, if someone here think he can explain him, do so. It's not difficult to come in contact with him at minix3.org. I think he is until today waiting for somebody who can tell him.

So, you understand what might be the background for the interest in MINI-X here in Europe?

And at the moment, I would say, the chances are high, that this will work. The companies have all the same problem: Unbelievable chaos in IT everywhere that they already get crazy on. It is not only lobbyism that stands behind Mini-X, it's some more interests in stability, understandability etc. that got lost in the other operating systems in the last decade.

Am 19. MÀrz 2012 um 17:30 schrieb erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net>:

> If your choice on Minix is because it is backed by E.U., you should
> question how long E.U. will last...

silly me, i choose operating systems based on technical merit.
and last i checked government or meta-government support
is not an indicator of technical merit in solving my problems.

- erik

[Jacob Todd]

Mark V. Shaney, is that you?
On Mar 19, 2012 3:54 PM, "Christoph Paschke" <***@me.com> wrote:

> >> and last i checked government or meta-government support
> Ok, I do another example and maybe I'm a stupid German and I have lost the
> "just for fun" idea.
>
> I see that more and more people get already VERY (and announcement is on
> VERY!) angry about all this chaos around.
> I give you an example that can understand. If the electric socket would be
> invented today, what you believe how much of this electric plug typs would
> exist. I compare it with CARD-Readers. 100:1 ??? Yes sure, we would have
> 100:1 electric plugs today if they would have been invented today.
>
> You not understand that people get
>
> ANGRY ABOUT THAT MEGA-SHIT????
>
> This is only one example. There are still more like electric loading of
> mobile phones and inkjet cartridges in 1000 variants. Do you really think
> people here in Europe find such things FUNNY? THEY HATE ALREADY WITHOUT
> END. They not want this 1000 + 1 shit anymore.
>
> What is Mini-X? It's already like: I LIKE THE MINIMUM TO WORK, JUST TO
> WORK AND NOTHING ELSE.
>
> Here some company chiefs already saying: We get back to engrave our
> e-Mails in stone if this goes forward such way.
>
> This is for you not understandable that people already get crazy at this
> endless chaos???
>
> So, Prof. Tanenbaum is going to win here in Europe because this global
> chaos becoming endless, unbelievable, intolerable.
>
> So, is such a demand for a more unique system in Europe idiotic?
>
> HOW ELECTRIC SOCKETS where made, from chaos brothers where each one only
> think of their own interests and ways of earning money? I not know, but
> maybe in NOT EU countries they like this chaos. Here, already people tired
> from that chaos and therefore Minix have a very good chance together with
> governmental support.
>
> I not against Plan 9, I only want to explain here why a German as an EU
> member not so far from sympathize with the Netherland concept of Prof.
> Tanenbaum. And this is what he already says since years: This modern
> systems are not to get handled anymore: to complex, cannot be overseen
> anymore. As I remember he already gave a price in former time for somebody
> who can explain him the Windows XP-system.Nobody tried it, because CAN NOT!
> At the current state his statement seams to be true, that NOBODY AT THE
> WHOLE WORLD IS ABLE to explain the XP-system at whole. So, if someone here
> think he can explain him, do so. It's not difficult to come in contact with
> him at minix3.org. I think he is until today waiting for somebody who can
> tell him.
>
> So, you understand what might be the background for the interest in MINI-X
> here in Europe?
>
> And at the moment, I would say, the chances are high, that this will work.
> The companies have all the same problem: Unbelievable chaos in IT
> everywhere that they already get crazy on. It is not only lobbyism that
> stands behind Mini-X, it's some more interests in stability,
> understandability etc. that got lost in the other operating systems in the
> last decade.
>
> Am 19. MÀrz 2012 um 17:30 schrieb erik quanstrom <***@quanstro.net>:
>
> > If your choice on Minix is because it is backed by E.U., you should
> > question how long E.U. will last...
>
> silly me, i choose operating systems based on technical merit.
> and last i checked government or meta-government support
> is not an indicator of technical merit in solving my problems.
>
> - erik
>
>

[andrey mirtchovski]

damn electric sockets! *shakes fist of impotent rage*

[Charles Forsyth]

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/plug-versus-plug-49303764/

On 19 March 2012 22:22, andrey mirtchovski <***@gmail.com> wrote:

> damn electric sockets! *shakes fist of impotent rage*

[Bruce Ellis]

Even Shaney is having trouble with these fish of the trees, tho he
would like to borrow "Most cases EU does central shit".

brucee

On 20 March 2012 10:07, Charles Forsyth <***@gmail.com> wrote:
> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/plug-versus-plug-49303764/
>
>
> On 19 March 2012 22:22, andrey mirtchovski <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> damn electric sockets! *shakes fist of impotent rage*
>
>



--
Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)

[Paschke Christoph]

In 3 weeks I need work together with Italians because of a machine control and the optimization system behind.
It's already difficult to work together and you can imagine English is already a good way communication works.
Although, in real, it is still difficult to understand the italian english and probably same with me that the italians understand my german english.
French and Swiss boarders are just some km away ... This multinational mix is a problem in EU.

And this not only means the language, it also means so much other things. For example, the culture differences and problems with history.
So, I remember some years ago, I had to work together with polish people at a project. I speak russian and therefore I starting to speak with them russian what they can understand very well. They told me: What you speak russian to us, we not living in soviet union anymore. And I answered: You can speak German? NO! What you expect me to speak english, we not living in USA the same. And such is ONLY an example of the intercultural problems because for example the polish people living historically between the hate to russians and the hate to the germans. And if you need work together such way, can be very exhausting and many projects fails.

But this is ONLY another example. It becomes also with knowledge very confusing. So, you cannot expect to have one standard to work on. One do such way, other do other way. One knows this way, other knows other way. EU is like the babel tower. And I think that other QUITE homogenous nations like USA cannot understand that chaos.

If you buy all you need from your own's company's nation like in former times this is no problem.
But if nations working together in such "small scale" as it becomes now more and more reality, it is difficult in many cases.

And in this way, I already get the feeling that the EU-project behind the Mini-X is a trial to a machine-control-fundamental that can be quite unique over Europe once a day.
How much this is real, how much this will be, who knows? Maybe if Mini-X evolves, the governmental offers of EU will dictate Mini-X as the standard that need be fulfilled. I think in US it was similar procedure with Ada programing language and military hardware etc.

I can imagine this is the background of the Mini-X project. Why not Linux? Probably because it is already to much chaos and you cannot come back to the fundamentals anymore that you can expect each nation in EU to get learned, understood ... Coming back to a structured base that also is planed to get teached in schools is maybe the way to solve this problem.

But what I speak about Mini-X so much in Plan 9 forum? I got lost a little bit in thoughts about it because of the GSoC and EU support for it. So, in real we speak about Plan 9 here, I know! Therefore last part from me about that comparative issue. Nobody knows how things will come. If people would know, probably Plan 9 would be the follower of Unix, but it didn't come that way!

Am 20.03.2012 um 00:24 schrieb Bruce Ellis:

> Even Shaney is having trouble with these fish of the trees, tho he
> would like to borrow "Most cases EU does central shit".
>
> brucee
>
> On 20 March 2012 10:07, Charles Forsyth <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/plug-versus-plug-49303764/
>>
>>
>> On 19 March 2012 22:22, andrey mirtchovski <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> damn electric sockets! *shakes fist of impotent rage*
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)
>

[Bruce Ellis]

http://www.chunder.com/text/dead.html

On 20 March 2012 19:25, Paschke Christoph <***@me.com> wrote:
> In 3 weeks I need work together with Italians because of a machine control and the optimization system behind.
> It's already difficult to work together and you can imagine English is already a good way communication works.
> Although, in real, it is still difficult to understand the italian english and probably same with me that the italians understand my german english.
> French and Swiss boarders are just some km away ... This multinational mix is a problem in EU.
>
> And this not only means the language, it also means so much other things. For example, the culture differences and problems with history.
> So, I remember some years ago, I had to work together with polish people at a project. I speak russian and therefore I starting to speak with them russian what they can understand very well. They told me: What you speak russian to us, we not living in soviet union anymore. And I answered: You can speak German? NO! What you expect me to speak english, we not living in USA the same. And such is ONLY an example of the intercultural problems because for example the polish people living historically between the hate to russians and the hate to the germans. And if you need work together such way, can be very exhausting and many projects fails.
>
> But this is ONLY another example. It becomes also with knowledge very confusing. So, you cannot expect to have one standard to work on. One do such way, other do other way. One knows this way, other knows other way. EU is like the babel tower. And I think that other QUITE homogenous nations like USA cannot understand that chaos.
>
> If you buy all you need from your own's company's nation like in former times this is no problem.
> But if nations working together in such "small scale" as it becomes now more and more reality, it is difficult in many cases.
>
> And in this way, I already get the feeling that the EU-project behind the Mini-X is a trial to a machine-control-fundamental that can be quite unique over Europe once a day.
> How much this is real, how much this will be, who knows? Maybe if Mini-X evolves, the governmental offers of EU will dictate Mini-X as the standard that need be fulfilled. I think in US it was similar procedure with Ada programing language and military hardware etc.
>
> I can imagine this is the background of the Mini-X project. Why not Linux? Probably because it is already to much chaos and you cannot come back to the fundamentals anymore that you can expect each nation in EU to get learned, understood ... Coming back to a structured base that also is planed to get teached in schools is maybe the way to solve this problem.
>
> But what I speak about Mini-X so much in Plan 9 forum? I got lost a little bit in thoughts about it because of the GSoC and EU support for it. So, in real we speak about Plan 9 here, I know! Therefore last part from me about that comparative issue. Nobody knows how things will come. If people would know, probably Plan 9 would be the follower of Unix, but it didn't come that way!
>
> Am 20.03.2012 um 00:24 schrieb Bruce Ellis:
>
>> Even Shaney is having trouble with these fish of the trees, tho he
>> would like to borrow "Most cases EU does central shit".
>>
>> brucee
>>
>> On 20 March 2012 10:07, Charles Forsyth <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/plug-versus-plug-49303764/
>>>
>>>
>>> On 19 March 2012 22:22, andrey mirtchovski <***@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> damn electric sockets! *shakes fist of impotent rage*
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)
>>
>
>



--
Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Mar 19 19:08:13 EDT 2012, ***@gmail.com wrote:

> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/plug-versus-plug-49303764/

"Brilliant: a problem solved that no one other plug needs to solve."

- erik

[erik quanstrom]

On Mon Mar 19 07:49:02 EDT 2012, ***@me.com wrote:
> Ok, for my understanding there is the difference between a
> reincarnation resource approach on base of a Microkernel and driver in
> user space (in Minix) or an file based distributed resource (in Plan
> 9), right? So, both ideas I find quite interesting alternative
> concepts, isn't it?

distributed file servers and reincaration are orthagonal concepts.

i'm not sure i understand the concept of reincarnation. on the one
hand, hardware by its nature can lock your machine up solid and
there's nothing the os can do about it. so how do you test driver
reincarnation? where could it crash? if you knew the answer to that,
you wouldn't need reincatnation. on the other hand, simple bugs
like dereferncing null i think would be better handled by fixing the
underlying problem.

i wouldn't assume that nearly everyone else has taken a look at the
reincarnation idea.

- erik

[faif]

Τη Δευτέρα, 19 Μαρτίου 2012 3:50:35 μ.μ. UTC+1, ο χρήστης erik quanstrom έγραψε:

>
> i'm not sure i understand the concept of reincarnation. on the one
> hand, hardware by its nature can lock your machine up solid and
> there's nothing the os can do about it. so how do you test driver
> reincarnation? where could it crash? if you knew the answer to that,
> you wouldn't need reincatnation. on the other hand, simple bugs
> like dereferncing null i think would be better handled by fixing the
> underlying problem.
>
> i wouldn't assume that nearly everyone else has taken a look at the
> reincarnation idea.
>
> - erik

Here's my rough explanation: AFAIU in MINIX 3 there is a server running (called rs) that "monitors" the rest servers (for example by sending small packets similar to keep-alives), and if one of them dies, it restarts it hoping that the problem that killed the server will not occur again. So rs might help in cases where a 3rd party driver crashes a server because of a bug, but it won't help if there's a critical deterministic error; as you correctly point out, the error needs to be fixed instead and there's nothing that we can do if we are talking about a hardware error.

So I insist: I see no novelty in MINIX 3. It's just a clone of UNIX with the drivers moved in user space (something that can already be done in Plan 9) and the client-server model (which is already pushed much better in Plan 9), plus a reincarnation server (that can also be implemented in Plan 9). No 9P, no namespaces, no cross compilation by default, no clear text manipulation of device files, etc....

The fact that they have money and the EU picked them is irrelevant. The novelty of an OS lies in its technical aspects, not in the community or fundings...

[Anthony Sorace]

Folks:
Friday was the meeting for rejected organizations to get some
feedback on their applications and supporting material. I was able
to attend on Plan 9's behalf. The news is overall positive, if not
terribly satisfying. The folks at Google were quite happy with both
our application and our ideas page (the main supporting item). We
fell to what was a common refrain in the meeting: they simply had to
cut a number of organizations they liked in order to make room for
new organizations.

In some ways that's not a terribly satisfying answer, as it doesn't
leave us with anything particular we can address, but it does speak
well of our efforts. Certainly the folks at Google were not shy about
giving more pointed feedback to other organizations in the meeting
where they had any. If we were to look anywhere for areas to
improve, based on the trends of comments to other organizations
I'd suggest we could put a little more work into making the
descriptions of ideas on our page more consistently filled out. For
returning orgs, once a sort of minimum bar is passed for the
application the competition really does seem to be largely focused
on that page.

In the next few days (I'm currently traveling), I'll post my notes
from sitting through feedback from 20+ other orgs, as well as a
transcript of our session, to the wiki, off the GSoC page.

Anthony

[erik quanstrom]

anthony,

thanks for doing this.

- erik