9front 和 cat-v 的來歷

來自專欄技術考古4 人贊了文章

有人問我 9front 和 cat-v 的來歷，我也不清楚，只是猜測，今天在 cat-v IRC channel 問了下 aiju，算是得到官方解答了。

9front 的 front 指 the front fell off 這集政治諷刺節目（https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM ），話題來由是澳大利亞一艘油輪被浪拍了，「船頭掉了」（the front fell off)而漏油，說實話這倆人嚼豆似的語速我是沒看明白怎麼回事，評論了一堆人樂翻了天，我一點都沒 get 到笑點。。。在 aiju 解釋下明白取名 9front 是為了諷刺貝爾實驗室的 Plan 9 開發管理。

cat-v 來自 Rob Pike 的一個幻燈片 "Unix Style, or cat -v Considered Harmful"，Rob 抱怨 4.x BSD 開始搞歪了 Unix 的設計，這些人沒能理解 Unix 的精神而錯誤的在各種工具里添加不屬於這個工具的功能，忽視最小、正交原則，搞的軟體大而無當——個人理解發揮，各位可以看下原文。cat-v 域名來自這個段子，旨在抱怨一切設計不當的軟體，在 cat-v 上有個專門的頁面講述，非常有意思：Encyclopedia of things considered harmful

aiju(這是網名，真名不叫這個，主頁 http://aiju.de/ ）七歲開始編程，十六七歲接觸 Plan 9，持續到現在有十年了，依然很活躍於 9front 開發，另外一位 Cinap Lenrek 主頁 http://felloff.net/usr/cinap_lenrek/ (域名的梗看出來了吧）是 9front 開發主力，提交次數非常多，好像是其它提交者總和的差不多十倍，現在依然在積極開發。

9front 的這幫開發者跟 Bell 實驗室沒關係，其中有一兩個參與者在Bell實驗室實習過，但跟 Plan 9 核心圈沒關係，核心圈指 Rob Pike, Dave Presotto, Sean Dorward, Bob Flandrena, Ken Thompson, Howard Trickey, Phil Winterbottom，其中 Rob 和 Dave 是系統架構師，Ken 是文件伺服器的架構師。

下面是獲得 aiju 同意轉貼的聊天記錄，大夥就不要在意我的語法錯誤了，跟德國小夥伴比，德語沒他們好，英語也沒他們好，嗨。。。

liuyb | yesterday night some friends asked me how the name "9front" and "cat-v" came, any link to the history? it deserves a page on wikipedia. Ori_B | http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM khm | liuyb: we already got the 9front wikipedia entry deleted (WP:notability) khm | haha linux is replacing mount() with fsopen() then a bunch of printf then fsmount then move_mount k0ga | I lost any hope in linux long time agoeikko_ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_szXDQ4rjq0 aiju | god! sentences are so long in japanese, its ridiculous! aiju | even in picturebooks, childrens picturebooks, Manrake! hiro | khm: hahahahaha aiju | http://runjimmyrunrunyoufuckerrun.com/ hahahahahahhahaschief | aiju: that belongs to umbraticus liuyb | Ori_B: thanks for the links, but I dont get it well, does cat-v stand for the declined (in design) unix or just the whole unix family? whats | the "front" in "9front" that fell off? the bad "enhanced" unix or the plan 9 itself as correct unix-ng? liuyb | khm: what was that deleted? liuyb | s/what/why/ aiju | have you read the cat -v paper aiju | cat-v.org was named after it aiju | cat-v doesnt "stand for" unix liuyb | aiju: I have a glance at that, it talked about some mis-enhanced in unix, especially use "cat" as an example. aiju | "cat -v considered harmful" is complaining about the poorly thought out additions to unix made by various people aiju | cat-v.org was named after it to complain about software in general aiju | 9front is a bit of a wordplay liuyb | thanks, got it, I enjoy much harmful.cat-v.org, I shared it to many people. aiju | it refers to the "front fell off" video aiju | partly as a complaint that plan 9 development was dysfunctional aiju | partly as a joke at our expense aiju | partly because it sounds like a paramilitary organisation aiju | i think the original 9front release announcement used the term "peoples front of cat-v" liuyb | yes, I searched the history of 9front, got a wiki on arch(or gentoo?) wiki saying "peoples front of cat-v" liuyb | got the idea, thanks! aiju | http://ninetimes.cat-v.org/news/2011/06/17/0-9front/ liuyb | I remember somebody here shared an interview link by stanley, it says you established project 9front, is that right? I checked hg history, did | you, cinap, uriel, sl and other people work for bell labs? aiju | no one of us worked for bell labs aiju | (i think someone in here interned there once but not one of the core people) k0ga | aiju: Ori_B did an internship there aiju | liuyb: the idea was kind of floating around for a while liuyb | Im curious what made you start hacking on plan9, no experience at school or work? aiju | i remember talking about it with cinap, noting that we both had a lot of patches on our machines aiju | i also had a patch rejected from bell labs which frustrated us aiju | taruti at some point decided we had done enough talking and set up a repo on googlecode aiju | she also did some development early on but left at some point for complicated reasons that are not completely clear aiju | liuyb: ive been programming since i was 7 or so aiju | i think i was 16 or 17 when i started looking into plan 9 aiju | there really isnt much of a leap from "using plan 9" to "hacking on plan 9" aiju | the system very much encourages you to modify it aiju | for me there really wasnt any more reason other than "this OS i found on wikipedia looks neat" liuyb | nice, I admire much on you and cinap hacking on 9front for so many years and still on it, its really fun, self-driven. aiju | liuyb: this is something curious ive noticed particularly with people from east asian counries: this idea that you need to be formally | introduced to something in order to use it aiju | i really just look into random things that interest me and play with them

推薦閱讀：