furcate/foundation

Everything needed to run it yourself.

The Furcate Foundation publishes the distribution, the frameworks and the open-source tools that make sovereign infrastructure something you can actually operate — on one machine, or on a cluster. Nothing is withheld from the free version, because withholding it would defeat the point.

01The distribution

Ubuntu, with the control plane already assembled

Furcate is a Linux distribution built on Ubuntu, shipping the operational layer already put together, so an operator never has to assemble one by hand. Install it on new hardware, or adopt a machine that is already running without a reinstall.

Adopt what you already run

Turn an operating Ubuntu machine into a Furcate node in place — workloads, identity and data intact, one file changed and one layer added. Every step reverses independently.

Or build new on it

A declared, versioned, atomically updated composition. System extensions merged into /usr, the base untouched, and a single furcate command for the console, updates and adoption.

Honest state

The distribution runs in production on the machines that serve these three websites. It is young: some parts are measured but not yet fixed, and some are built but not yet proven on a second operator's hardware. Where that is true, the documentation says so on the page it appears.

02What is in it

The parts, and what each one refuses to do

A control plane is only trustworthy where it declines. Each of these is built around a refusal as much as a capability.

PlacementWorkloads spread across failure domains — node, chassis, rack, UPS, feed. Refuses rather than silently placing replicas where losing one thing loses them all.
OverlayAn operator-owned WireGuard fabric where a peer joins on a signature from a key held off the coordinator. Removing a machine from the map cannot isolate it.
PolicyAuthority as a file you hold. Every proposed action is ruled on, and refusals are recorded beside permissions, so what the machine declined is as auditable as what it did.
EnergyDraw measured at the supply, not modelled — a declared multiplier was wrong by 4–9×. Findings state what is true, what it costs, what would fix it, and how to undo the fix.
DeploySites built, placed and served, with releases named by the hash of the bytes served. Rollback is a pointer move. Leaving is an export and a DNS change.
AttestationAssurance graded — unmanaged, pinned, imaged, measured — with each level naming its next step, rather than claiming a property the hardware does not support.

Alongside the distribution, the Foundation continues to publish open-source tools, frameworks and software built toward the same end. Each release is another piece somebody can assemble for themselves.

03Or have it operated

The same system, with the assembly done

Running it yourself means standing up the gateway, the overlay, the mirroring and the certificates. That is a real afternoon's work, and it is all documented. If you would rather not, the Foundation operates it for you.

The boundary is assembly, never capability. Nothing is held back from the distribution to make the paid option necessary — which means the price is capped by something outside our control: you can always leave, and we ship the instructions.