[jlehman]

"Urbit is a clean-slate OS and network for the 21st century."

The best way to get an idea is to read this series https://urbit.org/understanding-urbit/. This is also a great high-level introduction that skips the more technical aspects: https://urbit.org/blog/urbit-for-normies/.

I'd try to explain more here, but I cannot do a better job at than they've already done.

Edit: Also, it's despised by many on ideological grounds due to its creator's (who is no longer affiliated with the project in any way) political views from a decade ago. I'm not going to comment on this any further, because it's a tired case (discussed in literally every other thread on HN about Urbit) and I find it quite petty.

[lnanek2]

I realize it's the tagline, but it's kind of misleading to call Urbit an OS when it's a program that needs to run on Mac or Linux. WeChat is more fully featured, but we don't call WeChat an OS...

[jlehman]

The term "operating system" is far more precise than "fully featured"; in other words, the accretion of a certain number of features does not constitute "operating system" at some point.

From Wikipedia: "An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs."

It does that, which you can read about here: https://urbit.org/docs/tutorials/arvo/arvo/

Whether it's hosted on top of Unix at the moment is beside the point.

[lxe]

It's weird that it requires me to read a "series" to just understand what it is.

[ASalazarMX]

While you read this series, consider joining my Amway group. You could be rich in 10 years!

Joke apart, yes, someone asks for a concise, plain explanation and looks like it can't be provided.

[jlehman]

That concise, plain explanation exists in someone else's words four sentences into the above link:

"Urbit is a new OS and peer-to-peer network that’s simple by design, built to last forever, and 100% owned by its users. Under the hood, Urbit is a clean-slate software stack compact enough that an individual developer can understand and control it completely."

That's what it is. Concise and plain. Why re-explain something that's already well-written by another? Is following links and reading for half a minute too much to ask these days? If so, I'd suggest that the ask isn't very genuine.

[ASalazarMX]

Distilling this to concise words, it reads: "Urbit is a network built to last, and owned by its users."

This actually sounds interesting, and could motivate me to read more about it. The marketing speak they use online and in their emails? Not so much.

[lxe]

So it's an OS, like Windows or iOS? But also... a p2p network like bittorrent?