Re: [Solid26: Implementation Guide] On Solid26 (WAC|ACP)

Dear Christoph, elf Pavlik, all,

I share the concern with how CG consensus is being framed here. The CG consensus described is a lack of active dissent on [2026-03-20] (proposal of data collection) and [2026-04-08] (interpretation of results). There was no straw poll, no formal vote, and no input from anyone outside the call, despite many members of the community not being represented in those calls. Since other members of the CG have heard the outcome — they have come to CG calls and voiced their concerns, both with the process for collecting data, and the outcome it provided. Whilst it would be useful for those views to be re-iterated in this mailing thread, we cannot simply ignore what has been said in meetings and responses on GitHub.

As the one who sent out the survey, I feel responsible for the fact that it was not quality research — missing capture of a number of applications and not qualifying the data that was collected against size or impact of deployment.

It is also worth noting that early on we were discussing in the CG having a Solid 1.0. This became Solid26 because there was a view that there was not enough maturity to have a Solid 1.0. I sent out the email to collect the data on March 20th. It was on April 1st that you suggested we make it Solid26 an implementors guide and I opened a new work item [1].

My position on what we should recommend has changed — I have been transparent about that. That is a result of listening to feedback on what the nature of Solid1.0/Solid26 should be, the efficacy of the approach taken to collect information on access control languages, and the feedback on the outcome.

[1] https://github.com/solid/specification/issues/773#issue-4187138731


Kind Regards,

Jesse Wright
DPhil Computer Science
Jesus College
[cid:b9f1ac17-0a3c-4075-a839-3ec472ed3b45]

mailto:jesse.wright@cs.ox.ac.uk
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________________________________
From: elf Pavlik <elf-pavlik@hackers4peace.net>
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2026 11:19 PM
To: public-solid@w3.org <public-solid@w3.org>
Subject: Re: [Solid26: Implementation Guide] On Solid26 (WAC|ACP)

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