At Bell Labs, Rob switched acme and sam from black and white to color in the development version of Plan 9, called Brazil, in the late fall of 1997. I used Brazil on my laptop as my day-to-day work environment, but I was not a developer. I remember writing Rob an email saying how much I enjoyed having color but that it would be nice to have options to set the color scheme. He wrote a polite but firm response back explaining his position. He had worked with a graphic designer to choose a visually pleasing color palette. He said he believed strongly that it was important for the author of a system to get details like this right instead of defaulting on that responsibility by making every user make the choice instead. He said that if the users revolted he'd find a new set of colors, but that options wouldn't happen.
It was really a marvelous email, polite yet firm and a crystal clear explanation of his philosophy. Over the years I have from time to time spent hours trying to find a copy of that email. It is lost.
But I can say definitively, both as a matter of philosophy and because I did the lion's share of the open source release work for both systems since color went in, that there have never been color theme files in the Plan 9 distribution, nor in plan9port.
I think this approach to color selection is a wee bit patronizing, assuming that all users are the same (and gives waaaaay to much credibility/authority to graphic designers). Never mind that even if you agree with the intended choice, you'd need to make adjustments to cope with environmental factors (displays, light etc.).
Interesting but I could swear I had seen some theme files and had succesfully tested them IIRC. It was either for 9term or acme if my memory ain't confused.
It was really a marvelous email, polite yet firm and a crystal clear explanation of his philosophy. Over the years I have from time to time spent hours trying to find a copy of that email. It is lost.
But I can say definitively, both as a matter of philosophy and because I did the lion's share of the open source release work for both systems since color went in, that there have never been color theme files in the Plan 9 distribution, nor in plan9port.