Re: next step for the Solid WG charter

Hello Pierre-Antoine,

Thanks for this proposition, I find it really sensible. I feel like the
fuzziness about the scope of Solid is a problem as it sometimes makes it
hard to discuss. Your suggestion would make things very clear in that
aspect.

One thing, though, might be missing in your pitch and the expected outcome.
I feel like the data access/content negotiation/client-to-client/shapetree
part is very important in the picture and could be worth adding. I leave it
to your collective wisdom to decide whether that should be considered part
of the scope or too early/different to be included.

Thanks a lot!

Le ven. 17 nov. 2023 à 11:31, Pierre-Antoine Champin <pierre-antoine@w3.org>
a écrit :

> Dear all,
>
> (this is a summary of a point I already presented during Wednesday's
> call [1])
>
> we have received a long awaited review from the TAG (the W3C Technical
> Architecture Group) on the Solid WG charter proposal [2]. This review
> echos and synthesizes a number of comments already made by some of the
> AC reviewers. It makes addressing those concerns even more pressing, and
> my belief is that this requires a drastic change in the charter proposal.
>
> I gave a lot of thoughts to the following sentence, from the TAG review
> : "we see an extremely broad problem space, and a single proposed
> solution". I believe this summarizes the crux of the concerns raised
> about the charter, but also points to a possible resolution. It is true
> that the Solid community has huge ambitions (reframing the way web
> applications are built and used, giving back the users control over
> their data...). But what we want to get out of this WG is not a complete
> and definitive answer to all of these ambitions. PR 62 [3] was an
> attempt in that direction, but it might not be suffisient: neither in
> terms of narrowing down the problem space, nor in term of broadening the
> solution space.
>
> If I had to give an elevator pitch of the Solid protocol (i.e. the
> expected deliverable of the proposed WG), it would be :
> * a evolution of the LDP protocol
> * + a standard way of authenticating users
> * + a standard way of specifying access control
>
> So my idea is that, instead of pushing for a "Solid WG", why not propose
> an "LDP 2.0 WG", chartered to produce 3 specifications : LDP 2.0
> (client-server protocol), LDP-OIDC (authentication based on OIDC) and
> LDP-AC (access control). The corresponding Solid specifications could
> serve as a basis for these deliverables, but so could other similar
> specifications (e.g. https://open-services.net/). Ideally, the resulting
> specs would be entirely satisfying for Solid, meaning that a Solid POD
> would simply be required to comply with the 3 new LDP specs. Possibly, a
> few Solid-specific additions would be required, that could be specified
> as a very thin addition (a profile ?) of the new LDP.
>
> Before I move forward with this idea and start drafting a new charter,
> I'd like to know how this community feels about that?
>
>    pa
>
>
> [1] https://github.com/solid/specification/pull/597
> [2] https://github.com/w3c/strategy/issues/377#issuecomment-1790209071
> [3] https://github.com/solid/solid-wg-charter/pull/62
>
>