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Date: Wed, 26 Jul 1995 11:14:41 -0700
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From: "Bryan O'Sullivan" <bos@Eng.Sun.COM>
To: eyfarris@gdwest.gd.com (Eblan Y Farris)
Cc: hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re:  Plan9 - a salutory tale
In-Reply-To: <9507260355.AA11554@gdwest.gd.com>
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e> Does it come with an Xwindow environment [...]

The default Plan 9 windowing system, 8 1/2, is not in any way
compatible with X.  However, Plan 9 does offer the possibility of
running X in an 8 1/2 window.

e> [...] and WebBrowser [...]

Not so far as I know.  It does have TCP/IP networking, though, so you
should be able to run Mosaic from another machine with the display set
to your Plan 9 machine.  It also has Unix emulation libraries, but it
doesn't come with Motif libraries, so you won't be able to recompile
Mosaic or Athena.  Even getting something like Tk compiled would
probably be a lot of pain and, well, that's not what Plan 9 was meant
for, anyway.

As to whether there is anything FreeBSD can learn from Plan 9, I don't
think so.  I think that the evolution of Unix away from a Version
7esque spartan set of functionality has been a Good Thing for people
who want to get actual work done (as opposed to research), and Rob
Pike's philosophy is firmly in the Version 7 mould -- not something to
emulate, in other words.

	<b