Computers today are designed around engagement and surveillance business models rather than what users want. App stores are filled with adware, platforms prioritize data collection over user agency and social media algorithms optimize for addiction. Big Tech fundamentally reshaped computing from a tool for human empowerment into a massive data collection system.
This path, despite orders of magnitude in increased hardware efficiency, has lead us to a world in which the majority of software is slow, bloated and bug ridden. The systems we have today are neither friendly, nor safe. They do not take privacy seriously and fail to respect user freedoms. What we have today is a new form of feudalism, where users don't own their software, pay rent forever, and have their data living on someone else's infrastructure, with terms that can change unilaterally.
It’s no wonder that computers today don’t ship with developer tooling; software that allows you to make the applications you need.
Radiant proposes an alternative vision for computing: one where users truly own their systems, from hardware to software, and have the ability to inspect and modify it to their needs. This requires the system to be comprehensible by a single by a human, open source, and accessible. Neither of these qualities is enough on its own.
Radiant proposes an alternative vision for computing: a vertically integrated system, where hardware and software are co-designed as one. It doesn't ship with a web browser; it has its own network reminiscent of the early Internet: no social media, no scripts, no trackers. It's a from-scratch system that doesn't retrace the footsteps of contemporary operating systems. It's a new paradigm for personal computing that uses modern advances mindfully and deliberately, a fully open computer, from hardware to software that is comprehensible by a single human. It's a platform that makes great software possible, and is built to protect user freedom.
User freedom means the ability to truly own and modify your system. Code is computing's native medium; yet computers don't come with coding environments anymore. Coding has lost the simplicity it once had, when it was within reach of any curious mind. Radiant is different, it's designed for software creation, making it accessible to anyone. Every application and every surface exists as code you can read, edit, and extend. We want people to feel like they own and understand their machines. We want to bring the joy of computing back, and bring it to everyone.
Radiant belongs to a more humane future: a computer that welcomes curiosity, invites experimentation, and feels like your own. It's personal computing for the next generation.
User sovereignty is not a quality that can be retrofitted onto existing platforms. That is why we have to rethink the personal computer: so that we can instill the values we care about right from the start, as a new foundation.
Radiant is a computer reimagined from the ground up, a clean-slate design free from the historical baggage that plagues modern systems, and free from Big Tech's influence.
It's a computer designed to help you learn, create, play, and explore; a return to the simple joy of computing.