Plan 12

- A Post-UNIX Operating System Architecture

"UNIX? Never heard of it."

Plan 12 is a lineage of research operating systems designed under the radical model eliminating the traditional kernel and scheduler entirely and replacing it with properly decentralized processes communicating through a unified file interface.

Plan 12 is not a microkernel or exokernel

In Plan 12, everything from performing actions on hardware devices, scheduling, IPC, and so on are not simply represented as files, but are files in the literal sense.

Vans Plan 12 (vp12) is the reference implementation of Plan 12, comparable as Class 1 with spec version 2, preserving the kernel-less and file centric design.

Vans Plan 12 implements this via global memory structures with layouts similar to filesystems used to encode system concepts, such as processes, state, IPC, and so on. However, unlike in most operating systems, these structures are used in the literal sense as both the interface and the internal storage of the concept, making everything truly a file operation all the way down. De-centralized processes expose IPC files representing a device or action and self-schedule via a simple primitive used to bind one filesystem to an execution unit, allowing for simple de-centralized scheduling without a scheduler. All of this manages to eliminate the need for a traditional kernel and scheduler entirely while still allowing for everything to be internally represented and exposed as a simple file-like interface to both processes and the system itself (since there is no hard-line distinction between subsystems).

Plan 12 is a fully public domain specification, alongside a public domain reference implementation written in assembler language for the Intel 64 architecture. Plan 12 (and vp12) have been in development for about two years now, but are not expected to be in a complete form. A final release date is not specified, but please note the system should still be considered early alpha / demo.

Why? Because it does not appear to have been explored. Plan 12 aims to be a feature-complete, compact, and most of all, highly uniform and elegant operating system while removing the two most critical parts. It aims to simply answer questions about the model. Why has this not been explored yet? Is it a viable architecture? If so, what advantages does it bring? At it's core, Plan 12 is a research system designed to simply ask a few questions and explore an alternative systems architecture. So far, it appears the model should be viable, but further research is needed.

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