Misplaced Pages

Urbit

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by David Gerard (talk | contribs) at 11:32, 1 April 2023 (removed extensive slabs of uncited technical detail, per talk. Need independent third-party RSes please.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 11:32, 1 April 2023 by David Gerard (talk | contribs) (removed extensive slabs of uncited technical detail, per talk. Need independent third-party RSes please.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Decentralized personal server platform
Urbit
Urbit tilde logo
Original author(s)Curtis Yarvin, Tlon Corporation
Developer(s)Community contributors, Tlon Corporation
Initial release2013
Stable release1.10 / 28 July 2022; 2 years ago (2022-07-28)
Repositorygithub.com/urbit/urbit
Written inHoon, Nock, C
Operating systemLinux, macOS, Windows
TypeDecentralized personal server platform.
LicenseMIT License
Websitewww.urbit.org

Urbit is a decentralized personal server platform. The platform seeks to deconstruct the client-server model in favor of a federated network of personal servers in a peer-to-peer network with a consistent digital identity (an ID that remains the same when its underlying public key changes).

The design seeks to give users control over their own computing by fixing the underlying issues that cause existing services on the web to centralize, notably: spam, system administration complexity, and development complexity.

Overview

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources.
Find sources: "Urbit" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Urbit software stack consists of a set of programming languages ("Hoon," a high-level functional programming language, and "Nock," its low-level compiled language); a single-function operating system built on those languages ("Arvo"); a runtime implementation of that operating system ("Vere"), public key infrastructure, built on the Ethereum blockchain ("Azimuth"), for each instance of the operating system to participate in a decentralized network; and the decentralized network itself, an encrypted, peer-to-peer protocol running on top of the User Datagram Protocol.

The 128-bit Urbit ID space consists of 256 "galaxies" (2^8), 65,280 "stars" (2^16 - 256 galaxies), 4,294,901,760 "planets" (2^32 - 256 (galaxies) - 65,280 (stars)), and 2^64 - 2^32 "moons" with the rest of the space used for "comets".

Galaxies serve a governance role with each owner getting a vote "on documents and proposals for changes to the Ethereum contracts that govern the Urbit address space." They are also the root nodes of the urbit network hierarchy and today handle all urbit traffic routing.

Platform

Background

Galen Wolfe-Pauly on Reason TV in 2021

The Urbit platform was conceived of in 2002 by neo-reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin. The company has received seed funding from various investors since its inception, most notably Peter Thiel, whose Founders Fund, with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz invested $1.1 million in the Tlon Corporation to help build out Urbit further. The platform has been described as "complicated for even the most seasoned of functional programmers".

OS1

Urbit OS1 launched in April 2020. This consisted of a group messaging app, a message board, a note-taking system, and several simple apps such as a clock and a weather meter.

Politics and controversy

In 2015, Yarvin's invitation to the Strange Loop conference was rescinded; the conference organizer said Yarvin's "mere inclusion and/or presence would overshadow the content of his talk." In 2016 after Urbit founder Curtis Yarvin was invited to the functional programming conference LambdaConf, five speakers and three sponsors withdrew their participation due to their stated opposition to Yarvin's political views.

The source code and design sketches for the project alluded to some of Yarvin's views, including initially classifying users as "lords," "dukes," and "earls." Yarvin and Tlon rejected any ideological associations with the project. Andrea O'Sullivan of libertarian magazine Reason described Urbit as having a "libertarian ethos".

Yarvin departed Tlon in 2019. In a blog post about his departure, Yarvin said Urbit "is not designed as a political structure".

See also

References

  1. "Urbit: A Solid-State Interpreter" (PDF). urbit.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 31, 2022. Retrieved October 22, 2022.
  2. "Urbit.org Overview". urbit.org. Archived from the original on August 5, 2022. Retrieved September 13, 2022.
  3. ^ Wolfe, Alexandra (2017). Valley of the Gods: A Silicon Valley Story. Simon and Schuster. pp. 219–222. ISBN 9781476778945.
  4. Alberico, Zach. "Tlon, Urbit, and Clawing Back Computing Freedom". Martian Computing.
  5. Yarvin, Curtis (13 January 2010). "Urbit: functional programming from scratch". moronlab. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
  6. Jeff Meyerson (20 January 2017). "Urbit with Curtis Yarvin and Galen Wolfe-Pauly". Software Engineering Daily (Podcast). Event occurs at 8:55. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  7. Yarvin, Curtis; Philip, Monk; Dyudin, Anton; Pasco, Raymond (May 26, 2016). "Urbit: A Solid-State Interpreter" (PDF). Tlon Corporation. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  8. "Running a Galaxy". operators.urbit.org. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
  9. ^ Lecher, Colin (2017-02-21). "Alt-right darling Mencius Moldbug wanted to destroy democracy. Now he wants to sell you web services". The Verge. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
  10. Pein, Corey (2018). "Poor Winners". Live Work Work Work Die: A Journey into the Savage Heart of Silicon Valley. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 9781627794862.
  11. ^ Andrea O'Sullivan (2016-06-21). "Can Urbit Reboot Computing? –". Reason.com. Retrieved 2020-05-06.
  12. Wolfe-Pauly, Galen. "Introducing OS 1". Urbit Blog. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  13. Auerbach, David (2015-06-10). "When All It Takes to Be Booted From a Tech Conference Is Being a "Distraction," We Have a Problem". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
  14. Townsend, Tess (2016-03-31). "Controversy Rages Over 'Pro-Slavery' Tech Speaker Curtis Yarvin". Inc.com. Retrieved 2019-06-14.
  15. "A Founder's Farewell". Urbit.org. January 14, 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2019.

External links

Categories: