Plan 9 goes far beyond than that. Everything can be shared automatically, because everything is a file. Here are some scenarios that should be possible:

- You can access files remotely automatically from any application (akin to what sshfs does)

- You can access non-files remotely automatically: a printer is just a fd you write to

- A GPU from a distant cluster is just a resource you can use as if it were local (I'm speaking of implementation, not performance).

- A mail service can be accessed on a mail server, which is itself not connected to the wild internet but goes through a firewall... itself accessible through the same file protocol. Oh and the mail you want to send sits in your outbox on your phone, so you just grab it from your computer.

- You can play the music that lives on your machine on the speakers anywhere in your house by communicating with the remote fd

- One of the dream of Rob Pike (co-inventor) is that you wouldn't need a multi-core machine in your pocket for your mobile lives, you'd only need a good connection so you can access all resources on any server that is connected to the network. Your "smartphone" would then just be a terminal to pilot all your resources.

All of this accessible with the same interface, available in the OS. It may be have been a ludicrous dream, especially when we look at how much data would have been shuffling between machines, but the prospect of such networking still sounds awesome.