We are thrilled to announce that Nokia has transferred the copyright of
Plan 9 to the Plan 9 Foundation. This transfer applies to all of the
Plan 9 from Bell Labs code, from the earliest days through their final
release.

The most exciting immediate effect of this is that the Plan 9 Foundation
is making the historical 1st through 4th editions of Plan 9 available
under the terms of the MIT license. These are the releases as they
existed at the time, with minimal changes to reflect the above.

1st and 2nd edition were never released as open source software, and
both (but especially 1st edition) were only available to a very small
number of people. 3rd and 4th were previously available as open source,
but under a license which was problematic for some people (especially
the 3rd edition). We think making these available under the MIT license
is something that's going to be a significant benefit for all projects
using Plan 9 code. While this doesn't automatically change the license
on any downstream projects, and you're welcome to keep using the LPL if
you like, you now have the option of switching to MIT, which we think
most everyone will find preferable.

Obviously, for folks in the Plan 9 community, there isn't a way to say
"thank you" to Bell Labs, and its various parent organizations, that's
really adequate. None of us would be talking about any of this if it
weren't for the work done there for decades. All of us here at the Plan
9 Foundation express our sincerest thanks to the team at Nokia who made
this possible, the Plan 9 alumni who supported the effort, and the Plan
9 community who have kept kernels booting and the userland useful.

The historical releases are available right now at:
        https://p9f.org/dl/

You can read Nokia's press release on the transfer here:
        https://www.bell-labs.com/institute/blog/plan-9-bell-labs-cyberspace/

Thank you for your time,
Anthony Sorace
Plan 9 Foundation

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