- From: elf Pavlik <elf-pavlik@hackers4peace.net>
- Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2026 22:19:27 +0000
- To: public-solid@w3.org
Hi Christoph, I'm writing from mobile mostly to ask for a quick clarification on CG process. https://www.w3.org/community/solid/charter/#decision-policy "To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email, GitHub issue, or web-based survey), with a response period of five to ten working days, depending on the chair’s evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Community Group." My understanding is that we were using GitHub PRs for that, even without explicitly calling it out, and objections were raised by multiple people. I would also note https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-04-01.md#wac--acp "SC: Maybe, give the group the opportunity to voice (dis-)comfort with this result and messaging?" Certain discomfort seems to have been voiced. Even without reading the CG charter. My common sense tells me that CG doesn't have consensus on this issue. We clearly don't agree and the whole ongoing conversation can be seen as evidence. We already were planning to communicate Solid 26 as something that is still being finalized. This issue seems like one of the points that in the end we may note as something that we didn't reach consensus on. Given ongoing Solid Week I would suggest that we only try to agree on how this work in progress can be communicated. Best, elf Pavlik -------- Original Message -------- On Monday, 04/27/26 at 09:47 Christoph Braun <braun3@fzi.de> wrote: Dear all, there is disagreement on what the intent and content regarding access control language(s) in the Solid26 Implementation Guide should be. I have manually reviewed all CG meeting minutes [Minutes] starting 2026-01-07 and linked documents relevant to that discussion. Please find all the relevant references at the end of this email. My full comment including a documentation of my evaluation can be found here: https://github.com/solid/specification/pull/783#issuecomment-4325498262 ## TL;DR: I thus arrive at the conclusion that - the technical arguments made to also recommend ACP do not invalidate the agreement and decision that had been reached within the CG. - the intention of "Solid26" from the beginning was indeed to recommend one access control language (as it was communicated that way and the initial drafts only listing ACP). - the agreed to process resulted in WAC being the choice of access control language to recommend This CG followed the usual process of finding consensus or agreement and to reach a decision on a proposal. If individual CG members are not satisfied with the outcome of the decision or the data collection by means of which the outcome was determined, I would urge them to raise an issue to the group and make their concerns explicit in writing such that it can later be referenced. At the same time, I urge CG members to not obstruct implementation of the CG's decision, even though they might personally disagree. ## Status Quo - "Solid26" was communicated by @jeswr (JW) and Oli Bage (OB) to select one access control language and to recommend that choice. [2026-01-21],[2026-01-28],[2026-03-18],[2026-03-20],[2026-03-25],[2026-04-01] - Prior to data collection, the initial Google Docs drafts for Solid26 listed ACP as the already chosen access control language to recommend. [Solid26 Overview (draft)], [Solid26 (draft)] - Data collection shows high adoption of WAC and low adoption of ACP in the community. [Results (archived)] - After the data collection had finished, it was proposed by @jeswr to recommend WAC and in addition mention ACP. [2026-04-08] - An Objection was raised by @csarven against this proposal based on the earlier communicated goal and agreement on that goal in the group. [2026-04-15] - TimBL argued to recommend ACP en par with WAC. [2026-04-15] - The editors of Solid26 moved forward with recommending WAC while mentioning ACP, though not to include ACP, despite the objection. [Commit] - The argument to recommend ACP en par with WAC depended on use cases was iterated. [2026-04-22] - It was argued that "Solid26" were not intended to lock in baselines. [2026-04-22] Based on the above, I observe that - agreement was reached within the group to recommend one access control language based on the data gathered - the choice of access control language to recommend had fallen on WAC under consensus of the group - there is no agreement within the group not to recommend WAC - there is no agreement within the group to recommend ACP and WAC en par - there is no agreement within the group to recommend ACP I further note that - the current draft for "Solid26" already mentions ACP as an expressive access control language and acknowledges that implementers might find ACP to satisfy their use cases. - this is already borders what was originally communicated within and agreed to by the group. I thus arrive at the conclusion that - the technical arguments made to also recommend ACP do not invalidate the agreement and decision that had been reached within the CG. - the intention of "Solid26" from the beginning was indeed to recommend one access control language (as it was communicated that way and the initial drafts only listing ACP). - the agreed to process resulted in WAC being the choice of access control language to recommend This CG followed the usual process of finding consensus or agreement and to reach a decision on a proposal. If individual CG members are not satisfied with the outcome of the decision or the data collection by means of which the outcome was determined, I would urge them to raise an issue to the group and make their concerns explicit in writing such that it can later be referenced. At the same time, I urge CG members to not obstruct implementation of the CG's decision, even though they might personally disagree. Cheers Christoph --- References [Minutes] https://github.com/solid/specification/tree/main/meetings [2026-01-21] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-01-21.md [2026-01-28] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-01-28.md [2026-03-18] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-03-18.md [2026-03-20] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-solid/2026Mar/0019.html [2026-03-25] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-03-25.md [2026-04-01] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-04-01.md [2026-04-08] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-04-08.md [2026-04-15] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-04-15.md [2026-04-22] https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-04-22.md [Solid26 Overview (draft)] https://web.archive.org/web/20260424082149/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HxaShh5MVRBcimo9uXrtpWPCW6Xo5S9aOLdFAQX2oJY/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.68mt47qe53m7 [Solid26 (draft)] https://web.archive.org/web/20260424080942/https://docs.google.com/document/d/1da2J-NsU3K-4kWEFOvhzIdrvy_KftewXdlxfu401kY0/edit?tab=t.0 [Results (archived)] https://github.com/w3c-cg/solid/blob/main/implementations/wac-acp.2026-04-01.csv [Commit] https://github.com/solid/specification/pull/776/commits/12a71a33fc4674d7b296e2b6733856a9c1067e4c
Received on Monday, 27 April 2026 22:19:38 UTC