Re: New Scientist - We want our internet back

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Sandro Hawke <sandro@w3.org> wrote:

> Yeah, I haven't read the article -- as far as I know it's behind a
> paywall.  It sounds like it might help the mainstream scientists understand
> the need for decentralization.
>

It is, though you may have access via MIT library. The irony is amusing. I
have a PDF I could share for research purposes.


>
> Other MIT Crosscloud-funded personnel in the Working Group are not there
> on behalf of solid.   That's me and Amy.    It's hard to dictate someone's
> technical judgments, and since neither of us happened to be deep believers
> in the solid approach, it's been reasonable for us to take on the role of
> staff contact, a role which requires a degree of neutrality.   (W3C doesn't
> ask staff contacts to give up all opinions, because that's often at odds
> with having technical expertise.  But we have to balance the bigger
> picture.)
>
> I've tried to be about 150% transparent about this, repeating it to the
> point of annoyance sometimes.   I'm sorry I seem to have never said it in a
> way that made sense to you, and I repeat it here in case others have missed
> it as well.
>
> Some of you will recall a SWWG F2F meeting at MIT where I picked the name
> "solid" (from social linked data) so we could have a clear label for the
> stuff Andrei had just demo'd and was proposing to the WG, keeping it
> distinct from what I was doing (the broader Crosscloud effort).
>
> Although I still think its premature to standardize Solid, given that the
> user base is relatively small and technology still under development,
> although I hope any standards produced can be compatible with RDF - AS2.0
> clearly can and I believe AS 2.0 is being used by Solid.
>
> Although its odd to have Solid confused as a W3C standard although it
> being Tim Berners-Lee's personal project, it's not surprising there is
> confusion given that he is also Director and Solid is funding two staff
> contacts for the WG (Andrei was also at least aware of the Social Web WG, I
> hope he also mentioned it).
>
>
> There are several minor inaccuracies there.   I doubt they matter to
> anyone, but just in case, I'll point out: (1) Solid is part of Tim's
> professional work as a member of the MIT CSAIL Faculty, not a personal
> project. (2) It's Crosscloud (a joint MIT-QCRI project) that's funding me
> and Amy serving as staff contacts; solid is a separate effort also funded
> (in part) by Crosscloud.   (3) I haven't heard anyone suggesting that SWWG
> standardize all of solid in a very long time, if ever.
>
> The frustrating part about the article is that it mentions w3c multiple
times, yet only discusses non-w3c projects. I understand that institutional
affiliations can be confusing, and people will talk about their own work.