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Urbit is, as the project puts it, an "overlay OS", a smaller operating system and network protocol running inside a virtual machine. This ostensibly creates the possibility for Vere to grow into an entire replacement computing environment, only requiring a few skeletal pieces from an underlying kernel or perhaps one day becoming entirely self-sufficient.
I feel it's important to stress that this functionality exists in Arvo right now--if one boots a planet or comet today, their ship will run inside an entire Turing-complete virtual machine, powerful enough to build and run full-fledged programs inside it just like a regular operating system. This power is one major reason why I feel that Urbit as a technology should not be ignored.
There is another side to this coin, though. With great power comes great responsibility--and great risk. Urbit could one day grow to be able to replace entire existing operating systems and become the foundation on which future computing is built. If that happens, however, great care must be taken to ensure that this centralization of the computing platform is not misused or abused.
Urbit tries to mitigate this risk via its identity system. The master ticket that controls each ship is an Ethereum token and is thus cyptographic property, similar to Bitcoin. Ownership and control are two different things, however, and I worry that simple proof of ownership isn't enough to stop the erosion of freedoms in the long run.
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[Last updated: 2024-10-06]