Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Glenda, the Plan 9 Bunny, drawn by Renée French
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Installation of Plan 9
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| Developer | Bell Labs |
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| Written in | Dialect of ANSI C |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | 1992 (universities) / 1995 (general public) |
| Latest release | Fourth Edition / daily |
| Available in | English |
| Update method | replica |
| Platforms | x86 / Vx32, x86-64, MIPS, DEC Alpha, SPARC, PowerPC, ARM |
| Kernel type | Hybrid kernel |
| Influenced by | (Research) Unix, Cambridge Distributed Computing System |
| Default user interface | rio / rc |
| License | dual license (GNU GPLv2 and Lucent Public License (with few minor exceptions)) |
| Succeeded by | Inferno |
| Official website | 9p |
Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system, originally developed by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002. It takes some of the principles of Unix, developed in the same research group, but extends these to a networked environment with graphical terminals.
In Plan 9, virtually all computing resources, including files, network connections, and peripheral devices, are represented through the file system rather than specialized interfaces. A unified network protocol called ties a network of computers running Plan 9 together, allowing them to share all resources so represented.
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. The system continues to be used and developed by operating system researchers and hobbyists.
Plan 9 from Bell Labs was originally developed, starting mid-1980s, by members of the Computing Science Research Center at Bell Labs, the same group that originally developed Unix and C. The Plan 9 team was initially led by Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Dave Presotto and Phil Winterbottom, with support from Dennis Ritchie as head of the Computing Techniques Research Department. Over the years, many notable developers have contributed to the project including Brian Kernighan, Tom Duff, Doug McIlroy, Bjarne Stroustrup and Bruce Ellis.
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