[TUHS] Plan 9 from outer space ?

[Rob Pike]

As it says there,



*The hermeneutics of naming yields few insights. Things are named usually
because the name is nice (sam), or there is some private reference hard to
decode (8½), or in honour (perhaps backhanded) of another system (mothra),
or an indication of expectation (Plan 9, acme), or just because (acid).
None of the names tell you anything helpful.Despite the lack of
information, those who guess at reasons for naming generate volumes of
apocrypha. The real reason is usually, ``because''.*

-rob



On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:50 AM Royce Williams <royce at techsolvency.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 9:45 AM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 11:24 AM Pierre DAVID <pdagog at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 06:20:18PM +0100, Richard Tobin wrote:
>>> >> There is a widespred anecdote that "Plan 9" name comes from the
>>> >> movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space".
>>> >
>>> >Given that the full name is "Plan 9 from Bell Labs" I don't think
>>> >there's much doubt about it.
>>> >
>>>
>>> Yes, but is there anything besides the name?
>>>
>>
>> Plan 9 is the worst movie ever. And was for many years listed as the
>> worst movie ever, including the formative years of plan 9.
>>
>> A professor(?) at CU once told me, though I don't know if I buy it, that
>> plan 9 was Unix Plan B at first. There was a description that it was the
>> worst system ever (except for all the others) in a knod to Churchill
>> (supposedly based on his comment about Democracy). And from there it was a
>> quick jump to Plan 9 from Bell Labs as all these themes flowed together in
>> a mish-mash of creative naming...  With a different name, it could break
>> with Unix in interesting ways...
>>
>> I have no clue if this is true, and I'm no longer in contact with the
>> professor that told me this since it was mid to late 90s, and I'm honestly
>> having trouble recalling his name. It wasn't a 'big name' like Evi, but I
>> think it was someone at CU I had a beer with (which means it could have
>> been a grad student to post-doc as well, it was 25 years ago and beer was
>> involved). It makes a great story, but I don't know if it's anything more
>> than that. I put it out there because I know Rob or Ken is likely to
>> correct something that's this detailed and specific if it's really wrong :)
>>
>
> See also:
>
> http://9p.io/wiki/plan9/lfaq/index.html#GENERAL_INFORMATION
>
> Royce
>
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