Exciting updates to the Orb’s open source code

The World Foundation announced in March that core components of the Orb’s software had been open sourced. Since then, there have been several key updates and additions to the open source repos. Learn more below.

The teams developing the Orb’s software have pushed several updates to orb-core, including:

1. Support for the new Orb. See the orb-firmware repo for most of the changes related to the new Orb’s hardware.
2. Advancements in privacy and user control. Previously, the Orb would submit iris codes to the uniqueness service during the verification process. Instead, the Orb now includes SMPC shares in the Personal Custody data, which the user can then submit to the uniqueness service via World App. 
3. Use the Orb on your own. The Orb now supports a “self-serve” mode, which allows the Orb to be used by anyone with World App.

The Orb has a custom system for delivering over-the-air (OTA) updates, which is now open source). This system enables updating the entire Orb fleet securely and reliably, and includes support for auditing the software on individual Orbs.

The OTA stack consists of:

• An OTA update agent, to download and install signed updates.
• An update verifier, to confirm success of an OTA.
• A supervisor daemon, to coordinate system state.

These software components are now open source, and live in the orb-software repo.

This update signifies continued progress towards making all core software components for the Orb open source, a key milestone in the tech tree. Orb-core is expected to transition to open development soon, matching the other components in orb-software. Additionally, the teams working on the Orb’s software are working towards open sourcing the Orb OS build system and several security-related components. More soon!