The most effective way to improve an operating system? Live in it. That's the central thesis from a provocative essay by a 9front Plan 9 contributor, arguing that self-hosting isn't just practical—it's fundamental to the project's survival. The piece challenges developers: If you won't use your own system daily, why should anyone else?

"If you don't use it, how will you know what the rough edges are? If you can't be bothered to use the system, why would you stick around to hack on it?"

The author details how the 9front community hosts nearly its entire ecosystem—Git repositories, CI/CD pipelines, mailing lists, and websites—on Plan 9 (excluding IRC). This immersion creates a feedback loop: Daily frustrations become improvement opportunities. When developers rely on the OS for email, coding, home networking, and web hosting, they naturally identify pain points and build solutions that outclass alternatives. As proprietary platforms "enshittify," this organic development makes Plan 9 increasingly viable.

Crucially, the essay contrasts two development models:
1. Need-Driven Evolution: "I'm doing this, thoughts?" – Solutions emerge from concrete user needs (e.g., fixing email workflows or network configurations).
2. Abstract Mandates: "You should do this" – Top-down initiatives that often miss real-world usability.

The difference is stark. Need-driven changes yield elegant, battle-tested tools because they're forged in daily fire. Contributors don't need rallying cries—they already know the system's gaps because they live with them. Even when patches come from secondary contributors, they're informed by precise, experience-based questions.

But there's a warning: Without daily use, bitrot sets in. Unused systems decay. When tools gather dust, potential contributors try them, encounter breakage, and abandon ship. Self-hosting becomes a maintenance imperative—a way to keep the system breathing and battle-ready. As the author concludes: "Using things is necessary to keep things usable."*

This manifesto isn't just about Plan 9. It's a blueprint for any open-source project: If you want resilience and relevance, eat your own dogfood—and make it a full-course meal.