2title = "Interim Constitution"
5description = "The governing rules for the early days of the Urbit network."
9
11## Declaration of purpose
13Urbit is a new network created by the Tlon Corporation. Tlon's
14broad intention is to surrender governance of Urbit to its users,
15as soon as the community is collectively ready to receive it.
17This constitution (which is not a legal contract, just our present
18intent, which may be updated arbitrarily) describes our governance
19process during this interim period. Its design borrows from validated
20historical structures, mainly Roman and Anglo-American.
22The last and most important task of the interim government is to
23write the next version of the constitution. This document may or
24may not incorporate any or all of the interim structures.
26## Beliefs and principles
28See our document of [beliefs and principles](../beliefs-and-principles).
30## Governance structures
32The interim republic has four branches: an executive consulate, a
33galactic senate, a stellar congress and a planetary assembly.
35For the interim, full authority is held by the (Roman style)
36consulate. The legislature (senate, congress, assembly) is
37advisory. The senate is never consulted and the congress is
38almost never consulted.
40In the future, the assembly of planets specializes in technical
41governance. The congress of stars specializes in internal, but
42nontechnical, governance. The senate of galaxies selects the
43consuls and holds them accountable, and specializes in compliance
44with external powers. All votes, elections and other public
45actions are logged in the Urbit global namespace.
47As in most parliamentary systems, each of these structures sets
48and enforces its own internal rules of operation.
52A consulate is a two-person executive. The consuls must work out
53their own organization and division of labor. Disagreements
54between consuls are resolved by the senate.
56A consul must be a senator. The senate, voting per galaxy,
57replaces the consulate whenever either a vacancy exists, or a
58vote of no confidence gains a majority. When electing consuls,
59first a plurality selects one consul; then the plurality of those
60who voted for anyone but the winner selects the second.
64The _senate_ is the set of all galaxy holders, voting per galaxy.
65It does not convene except to replace the consuls. Its
66proceedings are in private.
68To avoid growing the network too quickly, galaxies are activated
69gradually. Initially, only one galaxy is active, the root `~zod`
72Further activation is at the discretion of the consuls, who
73control `urbit.org` and will only bind activated galaxies to
74`galaxy.urbit.org`. Routing at the galaxy layer is by DNS, so
75unbound galaxies, and any stars or planets they launch, hear no
78When any galaxy, activated or not, creates its initial
79certificate, the consuls add its fingerprint to the galaxy table.
80Non-activated galaxies can still be rekeyed.
84The _congress_ is the set of all active independent stars.
85voting per star. An _independent star_ is any star _not_ owned
86by anyone who is either a senator, or has some connection to one
87that would pose a conflict of interest.
89The congress of stars is designed to exercise project and
90community governance. Its proceedings are in private. The
91consuls convene it at their pleasure, and keep it informed.
95The _assembly_ is the set of all active primary planets, voting
96per planet. A _primary planet_ is the main planet of a unique
97human (no sockpuppets).
99The assembly is responsible for technical governance. Its
100proceedings are in public.
102### The next constitution
104The congress proposes, and the senate approves, the next version
105of this constitution. Future constitutions should be defined in
106a smart contract platform, such as Ethereum.
11095 galaxies are held by the [Tlon Corporation](https://tlon.io/). 50,
111reserved for urbit.org, the future community foundation. 40, by
112Tlon employees and their family members (24 by Curtis, who
113started in 2002; 16 by everyone else, who started in 2014). 34,
114by outside investors in Tlon. 37, by 33 other individuals, who
115donated to the project, contributed code or services, won a
116contest, or were just at the right place at the right time.
118Note that while Tlon and its employees still control a majority
119of galaxies, the senate is a ceremonial body; the consulate is
120effectively equivalent to Tlon.
124This constitution takes effect as soon as the initial public
125presale of Urbit address space is complete.
129The 50 galaxies marked "urbit.org" in the galaxy table are
130intended as property of the republic, and will be used only in
131the interests of the republic and Urbit as a whole.
133Externally, these galaxies are held by Tlon; internally, they are
134managed and voted by Tlon. Once the republic acquires a legal
135identity and an independent human organization, Tlon pledges to
136donate the `urbit.org` galaxies, the DNS domain, and the Github
137`urbit` account to it.
141The first consuls are Galen Wolfe-Pauly and Raymond Pasco.
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