Some of us think it was barely alive
"Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." - Rob Pike circa 1991
"Not only is UNIX dead, it's starting to smell really bad." - Rob Pike circa 1991
I think both GNU/Linux and Windows are not dead, just mature. Unfortunately, their maturity means it's really hard to teach them new tricks (for example, like non-hierarchical filesystems, which were recently discussed on HN), so, when considering all those fancy new (and sometimes not so new) ideas, those mature OSes certainly feel somehow old and limited.
One Plan9 product got $35m VC money this year - Coraid