On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 9:45 AM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:

>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 11:24 AM Pierre DAVID <pdagog@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