> As summary of my comment, when use research data for work, you risque, to make product for some abstract market, existed in past, but will not exist in future

> As summary of my comment, when use research data for work, you risque, to make product for some abstract market, existed in past, but will not exist in future. Of course - this happens all the time. But I'd argue this is definitely not what happened with Plan 9. I think the article mentioned this as well, that Plan 9 was not really made by business people with commercial interests in a software company with experience. It was actually the polar opposite. The people that worked on Plan 9 wanted to make a better system. I don't call it a failure, I call it an enormous success. It of course failed as a commercial product, but that was an afterthought from the beginning. I digress. You said that Plan 9 was designed for a future that never got to be. What about all its legacy? All the things that I'm sure I don't have to repeat, that got into every other system eventually. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned a weirdness budget. I think that's the best explanation. Plan 9 finished up their weirdness budget about 5% in. That made it an awfully good system that nobody used. We need systems like that to show us what's possible, but they'll never be mainstream.