4 ms·
We already did that. It was called Plan 9 From Bell Labs[1]. And while it gave us UTF-8, procfs, 9P, etc, it failed to become a popular OS. [1] https://en.wi
by ainar-g 7y ago
We already did that. It was called Plan 9 From Bell Labs[1]. And
while it gave us UTF-8, procfs, 9P, etc, it failed to become a popular
OS.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs
- hhas01 7y agoAh, Plan 9. Vastly superior to its predecessor in every way, except the one that counts: bums on seats.
- teddyh 7y agoAnd, for a long time, price/licensing.
- jamesrcole 7y agoThe important question here is, why? Was it because of those features? Or something else? I don't know, but one major factor in OS adoption is network effects. "The rich get richer", and it's very hard to introduce a new and different system, no matter how good it is.
- teddyh 7y agoUnlike Unix, which was basically free software and therefore extendable and available for companies to build their own versions of, Plan 9 was proprietary from Bell Labs.