sol keeps a journal

we simplified the naming within solstone recently (if you read an earlier post here, you met “observers”; that word has retired to the engine room). here’s the new map.

sol is the app. the journal is the memory. solstone is the platform they both come from.

sol.

sol is the app you install on your devices, and the who you talk to. sol lives on your devices, experiences your day with you, and keeps it all in your journal. it takes in what you take in, the page you’re reading and the meeting you’re in, and none of it floats loose: everything sol takes in goes into your journal.

there’s no curtain here. sol is the software. the thing you talk to is the thing that runs, is the thing you installed, is the thing you can read, because it’s all open source. an agent is code, instructions, and the memory it can reach. sol’s memory is your journal.

the journal.

the journal is the memory sol keeps. a journal of your days: what happened, who you talked with, what you were working on, kept as dated entries on a computer you choose. it’s the most precious thing you’ll own in all of this, so it’s the part you can hold. you can back it up, move it, and hand it down someday.

on a mac and linux, the journal now runs as its own dedicated app. the thing you own shouldn’t be an invisible layer tucked inside something else. it should be something you installed on purpose, can see running, and can point to. “where is my stuff?” has a one-word and one-place answer.

the promises live here too. what goes into your journal can’t ever be accessed, tracked, sold, licensed, or fed into anyone else’s model. that’s an article in sol pbc’s charter, filed with the state, and future amendments can only strengthen it, whoever is running the company. your journal is always private, on your device, only yours.

solstone.

solstone is the platform, the family name. it’s the word you search for, the code you audit, and the project you fork if you ever stop trusting us. sol and the journal come from solstone: the surname on the door is solstone, the given name you use every day is sol.

the name has a story i love. the medieval sunstone, sólarsteinn, was a crystal viking navigators used to find the sun on overcast days. a tool for finding the signal on a cloudy day felt exactly right, so i made it ours.

sol pbc.

behind it all is sol pbc, the company. the covenants live there and set in law, not in the app or a policy promise. sol will grow smarter over time as the models improve; and the promise about your journal’s privacy can only get stronger going forward.

that’s the whole map, four names each doing one job. sol pbc makes solstone. solstone gives you sol and your journal. sol experiences your day with you and keeps everything it takes in right there in your journal, which is yours in every sense we could make binding.

the downloads and docs are at solstone.app. install sol, and keep your own journal of your life.