Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a free software distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002. Plan 9 continues to be used and developed by operating system researchers and hobbyists.
Plan 9 has novel features such as the 9P protocol for accessing local and remote resources as files, union mounts, an improved proc file system, and native unicode support throughout the system. In Plan 9, all system interfaces, including those required for networking and the user interface, are represented through the file system rather than specialized interfaces.
The name Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a reference to the Ed Wood 1959 cult science fiction Z-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. Also, Glenda, the Plan 9 Bunny, is presumably a reference to Wood's film Glen or Glenda.
Read more about Plan 9 From Bell Labs: History, Design Concepts, Combining The Design Concepts, Software For Plan 9, UNIX Compatibility, Impact, License
Famous quotes containing the words plan and/or bell:
“If you should ever acknowledge my existence, I plan to snub you.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“There is evidence that all too many people are approaching parenthood with a dangerous lack of knowledge and skill. The result is that many children are losing out on what ought to be an undeniable right—the right to have parents who know how to be good parents, parents skilled in the art of “parenting.””
—T. H. Bell (20th century)