From a21515ab7032f3d982b4cc0864177532e480a02c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Kris Yotam <75515498+krisyotam@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Sun, 17 May 2026 19:03:54 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] expand resources, add grid section, update footer --- lib/footer.inc | 2 +- research/positioning-research.md | 577 +++++++++++++++++++ sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/cluster/index.md | 4 - sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/grid/index.md | 67 +++ sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/resources/index.md | 118 +++- 5 files changed, 761 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) create mode 100644 research/positioning-research.md delete mode 100644 sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/cluster/index.md create mode 100644 sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/grid/index.md diff --git a/lib/footer.inc b/lib/footer.inc index 787eb47285372a46162519afb7d46e295cc4af13..62f62d4a8f15f2e4269a871a0105dbeeb8615581 100644 --- a/lib/footer.inc +++ b/lib/footer.inc @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -
"And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future."
+
"And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future." — Ed Wood, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)
diff --git a/research/positioning-research.md b/research/positioning-research.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..7df7580cefd11b936831e92f6939d1579372db2e --- /dev/null +++ b/research/positioning-research.md @@ -0,0 +1,577 @@ +# Plan 9 Community Research: Positioning as the Gwern of Plan 9 + +Compiled 2026-05-16. Research across 8 parallel agents covering essays, people, wiki gaps, dead projects, strategy, modern relevance, contributions, and culture. + +--- + +## Table of Contents + +1. [Strategic Overview](#strategic-overview) +2. [Essential Essays and Papers](#essential-essays-and-papers) +3. [Reaction Essay Candidates](#reaction-essay-candidates) +4. [Community Figures and Blogroll](#community-figures-and-blogroll) +5. [Community Hubs](#community-hubs) +6. [Wiki Topics and Knowledge Gaps](#wiki-topics-and-knowledge-gaps) +7. [Dead Projects to Revive](#dead-projects-to-revive) +8. [Modern Relevance Connections](#modern-relevance-connections) +9. [9front Contribution Opportunities](#9front-contribution-opportunities) +10. [Culture and Philosophy Guide](#culture-and-philosophy-guide) +11. [Content Strategy](#content-strategy) +12. [Execution Priority](#execution-priority) + +--- + +## Strategic Overview + +The Plan 9 community is unusually small, unusually smart, and unusually underserved by written intellectual infrastructure. It has archivists (the Bell Labs papers are preserved) but almost no analysts and zero provocateurs writing at length. The gap is enormous relative to the community's intellectual density. + +**Key insight:** Gwern's authority comes not from being comprehensive but from being *trustworthy*. He shows his work, publishes methodology, updates and corrects, cites primary sources, distinguishes between what he knows and what he believes, and is willing to say "I was wrong." The Plan 9 community has strong opinions but a thin tradition of showing work in writing. Someone who adopts those epistemic standards will immediately stand out because the bar is low and the audience is smart enough to notice. + +**The position is open.** The community is the right size (large enough to have an audience, small enough that one person can know everyone). The content gaps are real. The modern relevance connections are genuine. The window exists because the people who built the thing are still alive and have not been interviewed. + +--- + +## Essential Essays and Papers + +### Canonical Bell Labs Papers (9p.io / doc.cat-v.org) + +#### Foundations + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| Plan 9 from Bell Labs | Pike, Presotto, Dorward, et al. | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/9 | The thesis statement of the entire project | +| The Use of Name Spaces in Plan 9 | Pike, Presotto, Thompson, et al. | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/names | Plan 9's decisive break from Unix: per-process namespaces | +| The Organization of Networks in Plan 9 | Presotto, Winterbottom | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/net/ | Network resources indistinguishable from local ones | +| Security in Plan 9 | Cox, Grosse, Pike, et al. | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/auth | Factotum, avoiding Unix's accumulated security mistakes | + +#### User Interfaces + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| 8 1/2, the Plan 9 Window System | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/812/ | Window system as a file server | +| Acme: A User Interface for Programmers | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/acme/ | Text environment exposing itself as a filesystem | +| Rc - The Plan 9 Shell | Tom Duff | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/rc | Shell that fixes POSIX sh's accumulated pathologies | +| Plumbing and Other Utilities | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/plumb | Pattern-matching IPC replacing clipboard | +| Rio: Design of a Concurrent Window System | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/3rd_edition/rio/ | Case study in concurrent design evolution | + +#### Implementation + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| Venti: A New Approach to Archival Storage | Quinlan, Dorward | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/venti/ | Content-addressed storage, ancestor of Git/IPFS | +| The Plan 9 File Server | Ken Thompson | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/fs/ | Standalone machine speaking only 9P | +| Plan 9 C Compilers | Ken Thompson | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/compiler | Template for Go compiler infrastructure | +| UTF-8: Hello World | Pike, Thompson | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/utf | Most consequential encoding decision ever made | +| Lexical File Names in Plan 9 | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/lexnames | Getting dot-dot right when bind mounts exist | +| Acid: A Debugger Built From A Language | Phil Winterbottom | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/acidpaper | Debugger as programmable language | +| Maintaining Files on Plan 9 with Mk | Hume, Flandrena | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/mk | Make without make's pathologies | +| Process Sleep and Wakeup on a Shared-memory Multiprocessor | Pike, Presotto, et al. | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/sleep | Early argument for model checking in systems code | + +#### Pre-Plan 9 Foundational Papers + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| Designing Plan 9 (1st ed, 1990) | Pike, Presotto, Thompson, Trickey | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/1st_edition/designing_plan_9 | Original rationale before Plan 9 shipped | +| The Blit: A Multiplexed Graphics Terminal (1983) | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/blit/ | Conceptual seed of everything that followed | +| A Concurrent Window System | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/concurrent_window_system/ | Channels over event queues; shaped 8 1/2, Rio, Go | +| Window Systems Should Be Transparent | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/transparent_wsys/ | Direct critique of X11 | +| Structural Regular Expressions (1987) | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/structural_regexps/ | Breaking the line-centric assumption | +| The Text Editor Sam | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/sam/ | Command language based on structural regexps | +| Squeak: A Language for Communicating with Mice | Cardelli, Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/squeak/ | Ancestor of Newsqueak, Alef, Limbo, Go channels | +| UTF-8 History (email, 2003) | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utf-8_history | Thompson designed UTF-8 on a napkin in September 1992 | + +### Polemical and Philosophical Essays + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| cat -v Considered Harmful (1983) | Pike, Kernighan | harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/ | Founding document of Unix philosophy revival | +| Systems Software Research is Irrelevant (2000) | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/ | Pike's most provocative statement; sparked massive debate | +| The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (2001) | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/good_bad_ugly/ | Unix's genuine innovations alongside structural flaws | +| Notes on Programming in C (Pikestyle, 1989) | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/pikestyle | Data structures, not algorithms, are central | +| The Rise of Worse is Better (1989) | Richard Gabriel | doc.cat-v.org/programming/worse_is_better | The intellectual foil to Plan 9's entire project | +| #ifdef Considered Harmful | Spencer, Collyer | doc.cat-v.org/henry_spencer/ifdef_considered_harmful | Preprocessor conditionals = failed architecture | +| The Hideous Name | Pike, Weinberger | doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/the_hideous_name/ | Why naming in networked systems is hard | + +### Lesser-Known Writings That Deserve Attention + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| Help: A Minimalist Global User Interface | Rob Pike | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/1st_edition/help/ | Universal context-sensitive help; predates plumber | +| The IL Protocol | Presotto, Winterbottom | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/il/ | Custom transport; case study in protocol tradeoffs | +| APE: The ANSI/POSIX Environment | Howard Trickey | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/ape | POSIX compatibility without design compromise | +| Alef Language Reference Manual | Phil Winterbottom | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/2nd_edition/papers/alef/ref | Go's concurrency model is Alef with better GC | +| Adding Architecture Support in Plan 9 | Bob Flandrena | doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/libmach | Reveals how Plan 9 made porting tractable | + +### Adjacent Community Writings + +| Paper | Authors | URL | Why It Matters | +|-------|---------|-----|----------------| +| McIlroy's Pipes Memo (1964) | Doug McIlroy | doc.cat-v.org/unix/pipes/ | Philosophical charter for everything Plan 9 extends | +| A Research Unix Reader | Doug McIlroy | doc.cat-v.org/unix/unix-reader/ | How Unix thought evolved and devolved | +| A Descent into Limbo | Brian Kernighan | doc.cat-v.org/inferno/4th_edition/limbo_language/descent | Accessible entry to Plan 9 ideas in language context | + +--- + +## Reaction Essay Candidates + +These are writings where a modern response would have the most traction: + +### Tier 1: Highest Impact + +**"Systems Software Research is Irrelevant" (Pike, 2000)** +Pike's 2000 diagnosis has only gotten sharper. A 2026 response could ask: did open-source replace academic research as the site of systems innovation? Is that better or worse? Today's "systems research" often means ML training infrastructure papers. + +**"cat -v Considered Harmful" (Pike & Kernighan, 1983)** +The argument was ignored when written. Now with 40 years of feature-bloated tools: did the Unix philosophy fail, or was it never actually tried? + +**"The Use of Name Spaces in Plan 9" (Pike et al.)** +Containers and Kubernetes namespaces are a pale, painful reinvention of Plan 9's per-process namespaces, implemented 25 years later by people who apparently did not read this paper. Trace that genealogy (or non-genealogy). + +**"The Rise of Worse is Better" (Gabriel, 1989)** +Do Rust, NixOS, or 9front represent evidence that better design can win evolutionary races under certain conditions? + +### Tier 2: Strong Essays + +**"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (Pike, 2001)** +Linux proved you can build an enormously successful system from structural flaws. Do "structural flaws" matter when the surrounding ecosystem compensates? + +**"Venti" (Quinlan & Dorward)** +Content-addressed storage is now everywhere (IPFS, Git, Nix store, Docker layers). What Venti got right that its successors ignored. + +**"Structural Regular Expressions" (Pike, 1987)** +Modern tools still process text line by line. Why this idea failed to spread, and whether jq/xq represent partial vindication. + +**"Window Systems Should Be Transparent" (Pike)** +Wayland replaced X11 by making the compositor responsible for everything -- arguably the opposite of Pike's transparency principle. Does Wayland vindicate or refute the argument? + +--- + +## Community Figures and Blogroll + +### Bell Labs Original Team + +| Person | Site | Known For | Active | +|--------|------|-----------|--------| +| Rob Pike | herpolhode.com/rob/ | Co-designer of Plan 9, UTF-8, acme, sam, Go | Retired from Google, sporadic | +| Ken Thompson | None | Plan 9 co-designer, UTF-8, Unix, Go | Emeritus | +| Dennis Ritchie (d. 2011) | -- | Computing Techniques Research Dept head, C, Unix | Deceased | +| Dave Presotto | None | Original team lead, Upas mail, networking | Retired | +| Phil Winterbottom | None | Original team lead, Alef language, kernel work | No public presence | +| Howard Trickey | None | Plan 9 design papers, geometry tools | No public presence | +| Tom Duff | None | Duff's Device, rc shell, graphics | Unknown | +| Doug McIlroy | None (formerly dartmouth.edu) | Unix pipes inventor, intellectual godfather | Emeritus at Dartmouth | +| Brian Kernighan | cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/ | awk, ditroff, Bell Labs documentation | Princeton professor, active | +| Russ Cox | swtch.com/~rsc/ | plan9port, 9fans archives, Security in Plan 9 paper, Go | Active on Go | +| Geoff Collyer | None | 64-bit 9k kernel, RISC-V ports, maintenance | Unknown | + +### 9front Core Developers (Current) + +| Person | Site/Handle | Known For | Active | +|--------|-------------|-----------|--------| +| cinap lenrek | felloff.net, shithub.us/cinap_lenrek | De facto technical lead. Kernel, drivers, crypto, audio | Yes, most active committer | +| Ori Bernstein | orib.dev, eigenstate.org | git9, gefs, shithub.us, Myrddin language | Yes | +| Jacob Moody | posixcafe.org, shithub.us/moody | Kernel, userland, infrastructure | Yes | +| qwx | sciops.net, shithub.us/qwx | Game ports, audio work | Yes | +| rodri (rgl) | antares-labs.eu, shithub.us/rodri | libgraphics, 3D rendering, games | Yes | +| kvik | shithub.us/kvik | lu9 (Lua), unionfs, docs.9front.org | Yes | +| sirjofri | shithub.us/sirjofri | gpufs, libgit, spread, map, dozens of tools | Yes | +| aiju | aiju.de | Hardware support, drivers, system-level | Likely | +| sl (Stanley Lieber) | stanleylieber.com | Artist, comics, propaganda posters for 9front | Yes | +| phil9 | hj.9fs.net/phil9/ | 9front contributor, 9vim fork | Yes (2024) | +| noodle | pastanoggin.com, shithub.us/noodle | 9front committer | Yes | +| David Arroyo | arroyo.cc | 9front committer | Yes | +| hiro | -- | Kernel/system contributions | Yes | +| Richard Miller | -- | ARM/Raspberry Pi Plan 9 support | Historically active | + +### Adjacent Projects + +| Person | Affiliation | Known For | Active | +|--------|-------------|-----------|--------| +| Ron Minnich (rminnich) | HPE | Harvey OS, 9p on Linux (1998), u-root, NxM | Yes | +| David du Colombier (0intro) | DataDog | 9legacy.org, Plan 9 Foundation, preservationist | Yes | +| Eric Van Hensbergen (ericvh) | ARM Research | Bell Labs Plan 9/Inferno veteran, 9p research | Yes | +| Barret Rhoden (brho) | -- | Berkeley Plan 9 release, Akaros OS | Active on Akaros | +| Devine Lu Linvega | wiki.xxiivv.com | Artist/programmer, Plan 9 daily driver on RPi | Yes | + +### Historical (Deceased/Inactive but Important) + +| Person | Known For | +|--------|-----------| +| uriel (Uriel Valberg, d. 2012) | Founded cat-v.org, #cat-v IRC, vocal simplicity critic. "URIEL WAS RIGHT" is a recurring meme | +| Sean Quinlan | Venti author | +| Sean Dorward | Inferno co-design | + +### Blogroll Candidates for krisyotam.net + +- orib.dev (Ori Bernstein) +- posixcafe.org (Jacob Moody) +- sciops.net (qwx) +- antares-labs.eu (rodri) +- stanleylieber.com (sl) +- aiju.de +- felloff.net (cinap lenrek) +- wiki.xxiivv.com/site/plan9.html (Devine Lu Linvega) +- swtch.com/~rsc/ (Russ Cox) +- cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/ (Kernighan) +- 9legacy.org (0intro) + +--- + +## Community Hubs + +### IRC +- **#cat-v on irc.oftc.net** -- Primary Plan 9 and Unix philosophy channel +- **#9front** -- Likely on OFTC or Libera.chat + +### Mailing Lists +- **9front@9front.org** -- General discussion (subscribe: email 9front-owner@9front.org with "subscribe") +- **9front-commits** -- Read-only commit log +- **9fans** -- Historical Bell Labs-era list, archives at swtch.com/~rsc/. Lower traffic now (~70-99 msgs/month vs 700-1000 in 2009-2013) + +### Code Hosting +- **shithub.us** -- Plan 9-native git hosting by Ori Bernstein, runs on 9front, 80+ users +- **git.9front.org/plan9front/9front** -- Canonical 9front source +- **github.com/9fans** -- plan9port, drawterm, acme-lsp +- **github.com/Plan9Foundation** -- MIT-licensed historical archive +- **github.com/Plan9-Archive** -- 352 preservation repos + +### Other +- **r/plan9** -- Subreddit, small +- **wiki.9front.org** -- Community wiki (tiny, 40 pages, many 404) +- **fqa.9front.org** -- Official end-user docs (9 chapters) +- **marc.info/?l=9fans** -- Best searchable 9fans archive (back to 1993) +- Discord exists but is a walled garden with no archival + +--- + +## Wiki Topics and Knowledge Gaps + +### Highest Impact (Most Asked, No Good Reference) + +1. **Plan 9 Namespaces -- conceptual ground-up explanation** (what a namespace actually is at kernel level, bind/mount manipulation, MREPL/MBEFORE/MAFTER, rfork inheritance, worked examples) +2. **CPU server setup walkthrough** (wiki page is 404; linear walkthrough from install to working drawterm access) +3. **Factotum auth debugging guide** (protocol factotum speaks, auth modules, rpc protocol, auth_proxy, secstore interaction) +4. **Plan 9 namespaces vs Linux namespaces / Docker** (rigorous comparison with code, what Plan 9 had in 1992 that Linux got 20 years later) +5. **Why Plan 9 didn't replace Unix** (historical account: AT&T breakup, Linux emergence, commercial incentives, TCP/IP standardization) +6. **NVMe and modern hardware compatibility** (which controllers work, AHCI vs NVMe, workarounds) +7. **WiFi end-to-end setup** (supported chips, nusb/ether, wpa, /lib/ndb/local config, debugging) +8. **ndb in depth** (wiki page is 404; record format, ndb/dns, ndb/cs, static IPs, routes) +9. **Writing 9P fileservers in C** (lib9p interface, implementing read/write/stat/walk, post, mount) +10. **Venti architecture and operations** (SHA1 blocks, arenas, index, setup, integrity verification, recovery) + +### Medium Impact + +- rfork flags reference +- /proc filesystem reference +- mk practical guide +- hjfs vs cwfs vs fossil decision guide +- Email setup cookbook (nedmail explicitly flagged as critical in 9front todo) +- 9P vs NFS vs FUSE comparison +- Drawterm full usage guide +- rc vs bash comparison +- Rio internals and customization +- The Plumber: architecture and rules (wiki page 404) + +### Historical Context Pages That Don't Exist + +- Why Plan 9 Failed to Replace Unix +- The Lucent and Alcatel-Lucent Years +- The 9front Fork: Origin and Philosophy +- The Inferno Fork and Limbo +- Plan 9's Influence on Modern Systems (systematic mapping) +- Key Papers and Their Context (annotated reading list) + +### Comparisons That Should Exist + +- Plan 9 Namespaces vs Linux Namespaces / Docker +- 9P vs NFS vs FUSE +- Plan 9 vs Unix: The Deeper Differences +- rc vs bash/sh/zsh +- acme vs vim/emacs + +### Practical Cookbooks Missing + +- Setting Up a CPU Server from Scratch +- Running a Multi-Machine Plan 9 Grid +- 9P over the Internet (Securely) +- Setting Up Email on 9front +- TLS Certificates and secstore +- Fossil: Daily Operations and Recovery +- Setting Up a Web Server with rc-httpd/werc +- ports System and Third-Party Software +- PXE Boot for a Plan 9 Grid + +--- + +## Dead Projects to Revive + +### Highest Leverage, Lowest Barrier + +| Project | Status | Gap | Revival Difficulty | +|---------|--------|-----|-------------------| +| **ninetimes.org** | DNS dead, never launched | No Plan 9 newspaper has ever existed | Low -- domain is free, niche is open | +| **Plan 9 newsletter/newspaper** | Never existed | Entire journalism vertical | Low -- just start one | +| **9zine/ezine** | Never materialized (proposed 2008, 2010) | Community publication | Low -- just start one | +| **Bell Labs Plan 9 wiki** | Dead (SSL broken), archived on GitHub | Neutral cross-fork reference | Low -- content exists to seed | +| **9fans archive UX** | Alive but terrible UX (marc.info) | No threading, no good search | Low -- build on existing data | +| **cat-v.org** | Alive but decaying (last update 2022) | Central cultural hub fading | Medium -- needs new operator or supplement | +| **9gridchan** | Dead (expired cert) | Only public Plan 9 grid | High -- needs infra | +| **Harvey OS** | Archived April 2023 | Modern hardware Plan 9 | High -- requires core devs | +| **9atom** | Archived 2020 | SMP/perf research fork | High -- niche expertise | +| **Plan 9 book** | Never written | Authoritative reference text | High -- years of work | +| **IRC logs pre-Libera** | Gone (Freenode collapse 2021) | Historical community record | Impossible | + +### What ninetimes.org Could Be + +No Plan 9 newspaper, newsletter, or serial publication has ever been successfully sustained. The attempts (RFC: 9zine 2008, Plan9 ezine 2010) all died without producing a single issue. The niche is completely unoccupied. A publication called *Nine Times* would face zero competition from any predecessor. Format options: +- Monthly digest of 9front development, interesting patches, and mailing list threads +- Long-form essays on Plan 9 philosophy and design +- Interviews with community members +- Reviews of new Plan 9 software +- "Where are they now" profiles of Bell Labs alumni + +--- + +## Modern Relevance Connections + +### Linux Features from Plan 9 + +| Feature | Plan 9 Origin | Linux Implementation | +|---------|--------------|---------------------| +| Namespaces | rfork(2) with per-process mount tables (1992) | clone(2) with namespace flags (2002+) | +| /proc filesystem | Plan 9 /proc with per-process ctl/mem/status files | Linux /proc (directly inspired) | +| UTF-8 | Thompson & Pike, September 1992 | Now 98.9% of all websites | +| Everything-is-a-file (extended) | Network, devices, auth all as files | Partial (/sys, /dev, but not network) | + +### Docker/Containers = Reinvented Plan 9 Namespaces + +Docker uses multiple Linux namespace types (PID, mount, IPC, network, UTS, user) that map to Plan 9's single unified per-process namespace model. The lineage: Plan 9 namespace (1992) -> Linux namespace (2002+) -> Docker (2013+). Plan 9 achieved with one mechanism what containers need six for. + +### 9P Protocol in Production (2026) + +| System | How 9P is Used | +|--------|---------------| +| WSL2 | File sharing between Windows host and Linux VM | +| QEMU/KVM | VirtFS host-to-guest filesystem sharing | +| Chrome OS (Crostini) | Linux containers access user data via 9P | + +### Factotum Anticipated Modern Auth + +Factotum (per-user auth agent, protocol-agnostic, negotiates on behalf of apps) directly anticipates: SSH agent, OAuth token brokers, Kubernetes service account tokens, Apple Secure Enclave patterns. + +### Plumber = Precursor to Intent Systems + +Content-aware, rule-based message routing. The user doesn't manually deliver data; the plumber routes based on pattern matching. Direct precursor to Android's intent system and modern event-driven architectures. + +### Plan 9 Networking vs Service Meshes + +Plan 9: all resources accessed through 9P regardless of location (transparent). Kubernetes service meshes (Istio, Linkerd): inject sidecar proxies to recreate location transparency. Same goal, vastly different complexity. + +### AI/LLM Applications of Plan 9 Ideas + +- **Filesystem interfaces for agents**: LLM agent interacts with 9P-based filesystem to discover/call tools through exploration rather than schema definitions +- **Namespace-based sandboxing**: Per-process namespaces for fine-grained LLM sandboxing +- **Plumber-like intent routing**: Pattern-match on LLM output structure, route to appropriate tool dynamically +- **Factotum for credential management**: Centralized API key/credential agent for LLM applications +- **Location-transparent service access**: Distributed inference/training resolved through namespace, not hardcoded endpoints + +### Companies/Projects Using Plan 9 Ideas + +- **Nokia Bell Labs** (World Wide Streams): distributed stream-processing reviving Plan 9's transparent distribution +- **Go language**: Pike + Thompson designed it with Plan 9 philosophy (composition, simplicity, concurrency from Newsqueak/Alef/Limbo) +- **Wanix/Tractor Project**: explicitly rebuilds Plan 9 ideas on modern platforms +- **Every container runtime**: inherits Plan 9's namespace design + +--- + +## 9front Contribution Opportunities + +### Tier 1: Would Make You Legendary + +| Contribution | Why It's Hard | Why It Matters | +|-------------|---------------|----------------| +| **Bluetooth stack** | Complex state machines, many edge cases, no existing code | Zero Bluetooth support currently; wireless peripherals impossible | +| **GPU compute** | GPU memory management, command submission, shader compilation vary wildly | Opens entirely new use cases | +| **WiFi 6E drivers** | Vendor docs often proprietary, firmware complexity | Future-proof wireless | +| **UEFI robustness** | BIOS/UEFI variation is enormous | Modern system compatibility | + +### Tier 2: High Value, More Achievable + +| Contribution | Impact | +|-------------|--------| +| Comprehensive test suite + CI pipeline | Enables all future work, accelerates development | +| Modern Ethernet drivers (Realtek, Mellanox) | Hardware support | +| Raspberry Pi 5 support + audio | Expands platform | +| QUIC protocol implementation | Future-proof networking | +| GPU framebuffer drivers (Intel Arc, AMD RDNA) | Modern display support | +| Native Tailscale integration | Networking ease | + +### Tier 3: Solid, Incremental + +- Documentation (security, performance, hardware guides) +- ARM/ARM64 vendor SoC support +- Port fixes (Netsurf, Go) +- USB 3 device class improvements +- Performance profiling and optimization + +### Contribution Process + +1. Make changes, `git/export` to create patch +2. Email `9front@9front.org` with patch inline +3. Expect 1+ week response (hobbyist-run) +4. For commit access: email Ori Bernstein (ori@eigenstate.org) +5. Style: study `style(6)` carefully + +--- + +## Culture and Philosophy Guide + +### Core Philosophical Stances + +**"An argument for simplicity"** -- Plan 9 is a working proof that simplicity and clarity are possible. It doesn't exist primarily to be useful; it exists to demonstrate principles. + +**"Unix, only moreso"** -- Radicalizes Unix philosophy: everything is a file (not just storage), per-process namespaces, single protocol (9P) for all communication. + +**Anti-complexity** -- Code is measured by what you've removed, not what you've added. Fewer interfaces, fewer special cases, fewer hacks. + +### What Gets You Respected + +- Principled refusal to compromise design +- Understanding *why* Plan 9 does things differently (not just that it's "retro") +- Contributing without bloating +- Running on real hardware +- Reading the source code as documentation +- Showing work publicly with citations + +### What Gets You Dismissed + +- "Why doesn't it work like Linux?" +- Feature creep ("because other OSes have them") +- Wanting it to be "practical" in the mainstream sense +- Casual adoption without engaging with ideas +- Porting for compatibility's sake at design's expense + +### Relationship to Adjacent Movements + +- **Suckless**: Shares anti-complexity, "more code removed = more progress", direct configuration via source +- **OpenBSD**: Aligns on simplicity-as-security, good defaults, rigorous code review +- **cat-v.org**: The philosophical and archival hub for the broader movement + +### Ed Wood / Plan 9 from Outer Space + +The naming is not self-deprecating. The community sees Ed Wood's technical incompetence as irrelevant to his vision. Plan 9 the OS is intentionally marginal because architectural purity matters more than market success. The reference is aspirational: cult status is a feature, not a failure. + +### The Filter + +The community intentionally filters out casual curiosity. Release names ("DO NOT INSTALL"), the FQA's mock-serious warnings, and deliberate incompleteness repel people who don't understand the point. This is preservation, not unfriendliness. + +--- + +## Content Strategy + +### Positioning Opportunities (Controversial Takes That Are True) + +1. **"Plan 9 ideas won, but the credit went elsewhere"** -- Containers are Plan 9 namespaces. /proc is Plan 9 /proc. Kubernetes service discovery is a broken Plan 9 name server. Write it with code comparisons and historical documentation. + +2. **"9P is the right protocol for AI agent communication"** -- AI agents need: file-like resource access, composable namespaces, simple read/write semantics. 9P provides all of this. MCP from Anthropic is architecturally close to 9P. Build a prototype, write the essay. + +3. **"The shell is the right AI interface, and Plan 9 already figured out why"** -- rc's philosophy (everything is a file, composition is trivial, no special syntax for remote resources) is directly applicable to AI tool composition. LangChain is reinventing rc badly. + +4. **"9front is the most intellectually honest OS being actively developed"** -- Most OS development is driven by compatibility, corporate priorities, or committees. 9front decides based on correctness and elegance. Defend with specific examples. + +5. **"The Bell Labs research model explains why Plan 9 is good, and its death explains why nothing like it can be built today"** -- Sociological argument about institutions and software quality. + +### Content Types That Establish Authority + +**HackerNews-viable essays:** +- "Plan 9 namespaces are what containers are trying to be" +- "The 9P protocol is 40 years old and better than what you're using today" +- "Why I run Plan 9 as my development environment (and what I had to give up)" +- "Sam: The text editor that preceded everything" +- "The Bell Labs papers you should read before touching a distributed system" +- "How Plan 9 solved the configuration problem Unix never did" +- "Obituary for a network protocol: Why 9P lost to NFS" +- "rc is not a toy shell" + +**Canonical reference resources:** +- Annotated bibliography of every Plan 9 paper with reading order +- Map of Plan 9 ideas in modern software (living, updated document) +- Comparison of 9front vs Plan 9 vs Inferno vs Harvey vs others +- Glossary of Plan 9 concepts with philosophical depth +- Timeline of Plan 9 history with primary source citations + +**Original research:** +- Benchmark suite: Plan 9 file operations vs Linux equivalents +- Code genealogy: tracing specific algorithms from Plan 9 into Linux with git blame +- Protocol analysis: formal comparison of 9P, NFS, SMB, FUSE +- Interview series: 5-10 people who built or use Plan 9 +- Survey: what current Plan 9 users actually do, what hardware, what workflows + +### Differentiation + +**Write for two audiences simultaneously.** Every piece readable by a curious outsider AND containing depth for experts. "Plan 9 namespaces" should be readable by a Docker user who has never heard of Plan 9. + +**Maintain strong voice and explicit opinions.** Existing Plan 9 writing is documentation-style. What's missing is argument: why this is better, why Unix got it wrong, what should have happened. + +**Publish at depth, not frequency.** One 8000-word essay with primary sources does more than fifty 800-word posts. + +**Update work over time.** Revision histories and correction logs signal intellectual honesty and create compounding value. + +--- + +## Execution Priority + +Ranked by impact-to-effort ratio: + +### Immediate (This Month) + +1. **Write the "Plan 9 ideas that won" essay** -- One long-form piece with code comparisons and historical citations. Submit to HN, post on Lobsters. Entry point for outside readers. + +2. **Start the NineTimes newsletter** -- Even if readership is 10 people. Consistency compounds. Cover: 9front commits, interesting 9fans threads, new software, one essay per issue. + +3. **Build and publish the annotated bibliography** -- Every Plan 9 paper, annotated, with reading order. Low effort, high ongoing value. Put on krisyotam.net. + +### Short-Term (Next 2-3 Months) + +4. **Begin the oral history project** -- Reach out to 2-3 surviving contributors. Even one published interview is more than anyone else has done. + +5. **Build one 9P tool with AI backend** -- A 9P server that exposes an LLM as a filesystem (`/ai/complete`, `/ai/embed`). Write it, document it, write the essay. + +6. **Write 3-4 wiki reference pages** -- Start with: namespaces ground-up, CPU server setup, 9P vs Docker. These become canonical and get linked from everywhere. + +### Medium-Term (6 Months) + +7. **Reaction essays** -- Respond to "Systems Software Research is Irrelevant" and "cat -v Considered Harmful" with modern context. + +8. **Build a proper 9fans archive** -- Take marc.info data, build readable web interface with threading, full-text search, stable permalinks. + +9. **Develop benchmark suite** -- Highest effort but creates original data that gets cited indefinitely. + +10. **Launch a neutral cross-fork wiki** -- Seed from Plan9-Archive/plan9-wiki. Cover Bell Labs edition, plan9port, 9front, 9legacy without being tied to any single fork. + +### Long-Term (12-14 Months) + +11. **Acquire and launch ninetimes.org** -- Full newspaper with editorial voice, monthly publication schedule, interviews, reviews, essays. + +12. **Submit patches to 9front** -- Technical credibility from code contributions that demonstrate understanding of the philosophy. + +13. **Revive 9gridchan** -- Public Plan 9 grid on your hardware. Unique infrastructure offering. + +--- + +## Summary: What Nobody Else Is Doing + +| Gap | Who Could Fill It | Difficulty | +|-----|------------------|-----------| +| Long-form analytical essays about Plan 9 | You | Medium | +| Systematic oral history | You | Medium-High | +| Regular journalism/newsletter | You | Low (consistency is the challenge) | +| Annotated bibliography and reading curriculum | You | Low | +| Modern relevance arguments with prototypes | You | Medium | +| Neutral cross-fork documentation | You | Medium | +| 9P tools for AI/modern systems | You | Medium | +| Proper 9fans archive with good UX | You | Medium | +| Public Plan 9 grid infrastructure | You (have the hardware) | Medium-High | +| Community connector to outside world | You | Low (just do it) | + +The common thread: the Plan 9 community produces code but almost no secondary literature. It has ideas but no journalist. It has history but no historian. It has modern relevance but no evangelist. All of these roles are open simultaneously. diff --git a/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/cluster/index.md b/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/cluster/index.md deleted file mode 100644 index 204a1bb359b09085cbaf99f507ec1e5ecb994ba7..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 --- a/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/cluster/index.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4 +0,0 @@ -Cluster -======= - -A Plan 9 cluster built from vintage Apple hardware. diff --git a/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/grid/index.md b/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/grid/index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..009bd12cf3f375ec92269449ecacba89f99bc34c --- /dev/null +++ b/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/grid/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +Grid +==== + +A Plan 9 grid built from vintage Apple hardware. + +## Servers + +**tanna (Mac Mini 2018, A1993)(file server):** Central storage. Venti/Fossil for Plan 9 native archival, ZFS mirror for bulk. Holds papers, code, media, backups. Every other node mounts this. + +**eros (Mac Mini 2018, A1993)(cpu server):** General compute. Builds, batch jobs, theorem proving, typesetting. Runs factotum and serves cpu auth for the grid. + +**criswell (Mac Mini 2018, A1993)(ai server):** Local inference. LLMs, embedding models, vector search, RAG pipelines. Kept separate so GPU memory pressure never starves eros. + +## Terminals + +**Mac Mini (2018, A1993)(primary):** Intel, sits on the desk. Drawterm or 9front native. Main daily driver for the grid. + +**MacBook Pro (mid-2012, A1278)(mobile):** Portable access. Drawterm over wireguard when remote, direct mount on LAN. + +Both terminals are stateless. Everything lives on tanna, computes on eros or criswell. If a terminal dies, plug in another and mount. + +## Future + +A fourth node for ingest/archival (scraping, OCR, media processing) may be added later, or merged into eros if the workload stays light. + +## Topology + + THE GRID + kris's 9front grid + + internet + │ + ┌───────────┴───────────┐ + │ edge gateway │ + │ opnsense / openbsd │ + │ firewall + wireguard │ + └───────────┬───────────┘ + │ + 10gbe backbone / managed switch + ──────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────────────────────────── + │ + ┌───────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────┐ + │ │ │ + ▼ ▼ ▼ + + ┌────────────────┐ ┌────────────────┐ ┌────────────────┐ + │ FILE SERVER │ │ CPU SERVER │ │ AI SERVER │ + │ "tanna" │ │ "eros" │ │ "criswell" │ + │ │ │ │ │ │ + │ venti/fossil │ │ builds/jobs │ │ local LLMs │ + │ ZFS mirror │ │ cpu auth │ │ embeddings │ + │ backup/archive │ │ factotum │ │ RAG + agents │ + └────────────────┘ └────────────────┘ └────────────────┘ + ──────────────────────────── USER TERMINALS ───────────────────────────── + mac mini 2018 macbook pro 2012 + (primary terminal) (mobile terminal) + │ │ + └──────────────────┬───────────────────────┘ + │ + everything mounts remotely + + /mnt/wiki + /mnt/papers + /mnt/models + /mnt/notes + /mnt/archive + /mnt/compute diff --git a/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/resources/index.md b/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/resources/index.md index 2b68698d559a8c8e307aed326c9586e9d48bf51b..163b6b7371fd2209a5221d6e5bfa17e07b5ccd8f 100644 --- a/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/resources/index.md +++ b/sites/plan9.krisyotam.com/resources/index.md @@ -1,5 +1,119 @@ Resources ========= -Guides, references, and directories for Plan 9, 9front, -and related systems. +Curated list of Plan 9 (and sometimes 9p) libraries and software. Generally when referring to "Plan 9" this really means 9front. 9p.io links are accessible over 9p as well. On 9front you can run `9fs 9pio` as a shortcut. Many of the applications listed here are available under the 9front ports tree. + +## Sites + +- [cat-v.org](http://cat-v.org) +- [9p.mom/f](http://9p.mom/f) - files for hacking together bootable things without easy access to a 9front system +- [NOPE NOPE NOPE](http://nopenopenope.net) - qwx's site with 9front usage tips and software + +## Papers + +- [Plan 9 From Bell Labs](https://9p.io/sys/doc/9.html) - overview of the Plan 9 system +- [Security in Plan 9](https://9p.io/sys/doc/auth.html) - overview of the security architecture + +## Manuals + +- [aiju's manuals](http://man.aiju.de) +- [cat-v manuals](http://man.cat-v.org) +- [Plan 9 3e FAQ](https://web.archive.org/web/20170601064029/http://www.fywss.com/plan9/plan9v3faq.html) - third edition +- [Plan 9 2e FAQ](http://www.fywss.com/plan9/plan9v2faq.html) - second edition +- [Plan 9 Tips and Information](http://www.fywss.com/plan9/) - second edition +- [Programmer's Manual (1st Edition)](https://plan9.io/sys/doc/) - first edition + +## Talks + +- [The Name Game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d1SHOCCDn0) - talk on Plan 9 and Inferno by Charles Forsyth +- [Plan 9: Not Dead, Just Resting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m3GuoaxRNM) - talk on Plan 9 and 9front by Ori Bernstein + +## Tutorials + +- [Modding Rio](http://nopenopenope.net) - how to add a wallpaper and change colors +- [Plan 9 GUI Examples](https://github.com/nspool/hello-plan9) - GUI development on Plan 9 +- [Plan 9 Desktop Guide](https://pspodcasting.net/dan/blog/2019/plan9_desktop.html) - all in one guide to get started + +## Applications + +- [color9](https://git.sr.ht/~moody/color9) - color picker +- [disco](https://github.com/henesy/disco) - Discord client +- [fontsel](https://github.com/henesy/fontsel) - font selector +- [git9](https://github.com/oridb/git9) - git implementation +- [unionfs](https://github.com/okvik/unionfs) - deep union file server +- [xmpp](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/xmpp) - XMPP client +- [hell](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/hell) - Mastodon client +- [9vim](https://vmsplice.net/9vim.html) - port of vim to Plan 9 +- [Phil9's 9vim fork](https://github.com/phil9/9vim) - 9vim with additional features and bug fixes +- [Moogle](https://shithub.us/moogle/) - simple 3D wireframe editor +- [whiteboardfs](https://ryne.moe/whiteboardfs) - collaborative drawing file system +- [mpl](https://github.com/henesy/mpl) - music player +- [neindaw](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/neindaw) - DAW for Plan 9 +- [orca](https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca) - live programming environment +- [treason](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/treason) - video player +- [ytfs](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/ytfs) - file system for playing youtube audio +- [zuke](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/zuke) - music player +- [wrec](https://shithub.us/wrec/) - screen and window recorder + +## Languages + +Languages known to be buildable/operational on Plan 9. + +- [aa](https://github.com/hellerve/aa) - tiny, embeddable Lisp-like language +- [APL](https://github.com/pmikkelsen/apl) - primitive APL implementation +- [c4](https://github.com/rswier/c4) - C in 4 functions +- [cfront](https://github.com/brho/cfront-3) - archaic C++ pre-compiler +- [Chibi Scheme](https://github.com/ashinn/chibi-scheme) - small embeddable scheme +- [clox9](https://github.com/henesy/clox9) - port of Nystrom's clox to Plan 9 +- [Go](https://golang.org) - the Go programming language +- [Hugs](https://www.haskell.org/hugs/) - Haskell98 interpreter +- [Idris 2](https://github.com/idris-lang/Idris2) - dependently typed language, pre-alpha port +- [Lua (lu9)](https://github.com/kvik/lu9) - Lua from kvik +- [Fennel](https://fennel-lang.org) - Fennel via lu9 +- [Myrddin](https://myrlang.org) - systems language by Ori Bernstein +- [nhc98](https://www.haskell.org/nhc98/) - Haskell compiler +- [Ocaml](https://ocaml.org) - Ocaml +- [Perl](https://www.perl.org) - Perl +- [Python 2](https://www.python.org) +- [Scheme 9](https://t3x.org/s9fes/) - Scheme 9 from Empty Space +- [Squeak](https://squeak.org) - Squeak/Smalltalk +- [Tcl](https://www.tcl-lang.org) - Tcl port by fgb +- [TinyScheme](http://tinyscheme.sourceforge.net) - TinyScheme +- [UMB Scheme](https://www.cs.umb.edu/~wrc/scheme/) - UMB Scheme +- [uxn](https://wiki.xxiivv.com/site/uxn.html) - small stack machine + +## Libraries + +- [libtags](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/libtags) - cross-platform library for reading tags +- [libtheme](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/libtheme) - theming library for Plan 9 graphics +- [libutf](https://github.com/cls/libutf) - Plan 9 compatible UTF-8 C library +- [microui](https://github.com/rxi/microui) - tiny immediate-mode UI library +- [npe](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/npe) - native porting environment for POSIX software + +## Forks + +- [9ants](https://github.com/mycroftiv/9ants) - modified kernel and custom namespace control tooling +- [9front](http://9front.org) - new protocols, file systems, greatly expanded hardware support +- [9legacy](http://9legacy.org) - continues maintaining a Bell Labs-like source base +- [9pi](https://github.com/0intro/9pi) - port of 9legacy to the Raspberry Pi +- [Harvey](https://github.com/Harvey-OS/harvey) - MIT-licensed OS based on Plan 9 +- [JehanneOS](https://github.com/JehanneOS/jehanne) - Giacomo Tesio's fork +- [Nix](https://lsub.org/nix/) (deprecated) - focused on high performance parallel cloud computing + +## Influenced by Plan 9 + +- [acme2k](https://github.com/karahobny/acme2k) - acme-inspired editor, geared towards configurability +- [edwood](https://github.com/rjkroege/edwood) - acme-inspired editor in Go +- [sam](https://github.com/deadpixi/sam) - fork of sam(1) with extensive extensibility +- [anvil](https://github.com/prodhe/anvil) - acme-inspired editor in Go +- [ad](https://github.com/as/ad) - acme-inspired modal editor +- [Vis](https://github.com/martanne/vis) - vi-like editor based on structural regular expressions +- [mk](https://github.com/grosskur/mk) - rewrite of mk(1) in Go +- [sregx](https://github.com/zyedidia/sregx) - structural regular expressions tool and library +- [c9](https://github.com/ftrvxmtrx/c9) - low-level 9p client and server implementation +- [plan_rust](https://github.com/nickmass/plan_rust) - Plan 9 influenced kernel in Rust (2019) +- [R9](https://github.com/nxsre/r9) - reimplementation of the Plan 9 kernel in Rust (2022-present) +- [Akaros](https://github.com/brho/akaros) - parallel and high-performance applications, scales to many cores +- [Inferno](https://github.com/inferno-os/inferno-os) - register-oriented VM OS, leverages 9p as "styx" +- [Interim](https://github.com/mntmn/interim) - minimal OS featuring a lisp environment +- [Redox](https://www.redox-os.org) - Unix-like OS written in Rust