Re: next step for the Solid WG charter

On fredag 17. november 2023 11:30:17 CET Pierre-Antoine Champin wrote:
> : "we see an extremely broad problem space, and a single proposed
> solution". 

Indeed, I think that's a very fair description.

If the Solid community, several years ago, had focused on bringing genuinely 
useful stuff that could be used right now to people, like late Aaron Swartz 
urged us to do many years ago:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-sweo-ig/2006Dec/0138.html
then, we might have been able to show that this single solution had merit. But 
that opportunity has passed, in fact, it might have already been to late in 
2006.


> 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). 

Without being engaged anymore, what I found, partly as working as Solid Editor 
for several years, is that LDP is a extremely overcomplicated and incoherent 
specification. Building on LDP to cover a broad problem space and getting wide 
acceptance is unlikely to succeed. 

LDP is basically the wrong thing to stick to going forward. Instead, the WG 
should be more open minded towards communities that do not see LDP as 
foundational, and see how knowledge graphs, hypermedia and self-contained 
semantics can be incorporated in that.

Kind regards,

Kjetil

Received on Tuesday, 21 November 2023 08:34:57 UTC