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Comment by f2f | Hacker News Reader

    > I updated my laptop. I have been running the development  
    > version of FreeBSD for 18 years straight now, and 
    > compiling  even my Spartan work environment from source 
    > code takes a  full day, because it involves trying to 
    > make sense and  architecture out of Raymond's
    > anarchistic software bazaar.

ahh, you should've tried Plan 9, phk. 130 seconds to compile all software and libraries, 6 seconds to compile a new kernel. no bazaar there...

of course, this didn't appeal to you back then, did it? ;)

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Plan 9 has appealed to me since I first heard about it in 198x, but it wasn't available until long time after we started FreeBSD.

Plan 9 was not free software and it is still difficult to make a practical, free Plan 9 system.

Do you perceive the difficulty in making the system free? Or practical?

I thought the licensing issues had been resolved for years now?

Impractical I have no argument with, sadly.

plan9 was free software in 2000 when the 3rd release was made available (and before the issues discussed in this article were encountered). this is despite RMS's objections that were parroted by clueless linux fanboys around the net.

as to practicality, plan9 was exactly as practical as phk's supposed "cathedral" unix would've been. at the very least it had 1Friggin'UI instead of many :)

but hey, thanks for the downvote. it's not like we haven't had this discussion in person with phk, our difference in opinions is well known to each other.

The idea that everything is a file does not appeal to me.

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