Dat (
) is a
data distribution tool with a
version control
In software engineering, version control (also known as revision control, source control, or source code management) is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs, documents, large web sites, or other collections o ...
feature for tracking changes and publishing
data sets A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more table (database), database tables, where every column (database), column of a table represents a particular Variable (computer scienc ...
. It is primarily used for
data-driven science, but it can be used to keep track of changes in any data set. As a
distributed revision control
In software development, distributed version control (also known as distributed revision control) is a form of version control in which the complete codebase, including its full history, is mirrored on every developer's computer. Compared to centr ...
system it is aimed at speed, simplicity, security, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows.
Dat was created by Max Ogden in 2013 to standardize the way data analysts collaborate on the changes they make to data sets. It is developed through funding support from Code for Science, the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
[
Dat is ]free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...
distributed under the terms of the BSD-3-Clause
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lic ...
license.
One of the main implementations is Beaker, a web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
that seamlessly handles dat:// URLs and allows building and seeding Dat websites. Homebase is a server-side permanent seeding tool for Dat.
See also
* Freenet
Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, anonymous communication. It uses a decentralized distributed data store to keep and deliver information, and has a suite of free software for publishing and communicating on the Web ...
* InterPlanetary File System
The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol, hypermedia and file sharing peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system. IPFS uses content-addressing to uniquely identify each file in a global namespac ...
(IPFS)
* Git
Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data integ ...
* Beaker (web browser)
Beaker is a discontinued free and open-source web browser developed by Blue Link Labs. Beaker Browser peer-to-peer technology allows users to self-publish websites and web apps directly from the browser, without the need to set up and administrat ...
* Comparison of version control software
In software development, version control is a class of systems responsible for managing changes to computer programs or other collections of information such that revisions have a logical and consistent organization. The following tables includ ...
* List of revision control software
References
{{File sharing
Version control
Distributed data storage
Peer-to-peer file sharing
Distributed file systems
2013 introductions