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

Dear Pavlik, Jesse, and all,

thank you for your feedback!
The problem I address is about communication, commitment, and ultimately 
honesty.

## TL;DR:

Pavlik, the problem is indeed less about the "formality of CG process" 
and more about honoring what was communicated and committed to by the 
group in light of dissenting individuals.

Jesse, it is absolutely fine to change your mind. But even if you 
personally agree with the opinion and concerns voiced, there is not yet 
consensus, agreement or even consent of the CG to just execute what 
dissenting individuals demand. Anticipatory obedience is inappropriate here.

Taking a step back, the concerns raised are not ignored. The technical 
arguments are being incorporated; ACP is mentioned in Solid26 while WAC 
remains recommended. That is the middle ground that currently seems 
viable from the whole discussion, thus keeping the promise of what was 
communicated and committed to in the CG as well as acknowledging raised 
concerns.

## Long Form:

Pavlik, Jesse, the problem at hand is less about the "formality of CG 
process", which is already pretty low in the CG. In the past, Pavlik had 
even criticized the parts where more guidance is provided, e.g., in [1], 
and called for removal. The decision policy has not been actively lived 
in the CG meetings for years now, resulting e.g. in the discussion on 
what an ACTION listed in the minutes even constitutes. This is indeed a 
problem that the wider CG faces but a different problem than the one I 
am highlighting.

The problem here is more about that Jesse and Oli communicated one thing 
to the group, namely that one access control language would be 
recommended, and that the basis for a decision would be the data gathered.
This had been communicated over months in CG meetings (and on the 
mailing list), the group voiced concerns and feedback, but ultimately 
consented to this moving forward.

As the [2026-02-04] meeting minutes show, I personally was concerned 
about only recommending one access control language and about the fierce 
discussion that would entail. My voice did not seem to weigh enough to 
alter the decision of the group to move forward as suggested. I 
consented and committed to carrying out what was 
decided/agreed/consented to.

And indeed Jesse, in recent meetings individuals voiced concerns about 
what was decided. These voices were silent over the months were the 
decision was debated in the CG meetings, and there was no response to 
Jesse's email on [2026-03-20] that announced that intention and 
decision. There was ample time in advance to voice the exact concerns we 
are hearing now.

What is more, these concerns are being raised now - after the designated 
access control language to recommend, i.e., WAC, differs from the choice 
already made in the first drafts, i.e., ACP. The concerns being raised 
now outright demand to not omit ACP and even argue to recommend ACP en 
par with WAC. Even going so far to claim that Solid26 was not intended 
from the beginning to set baselines.

I'll be honest: The above behavior seems questionable to me,
given what was communicated to the group and committed to carry out.
This seems to me that individuals or stakeholders did not like the 
outcome of this whole exercise
and thus try to retcon what the group should have done in their opinion 
to arrive at their desired outcome.

Jesse, it is absolutely fine to change your mind. But even if you 
personally agree with the opinion and concerns voiced, there is not yet 
consensus, agreement or even consent of the CG to just execute what 
dissenting individuals demand. Anticipatory obedience is inappropriate here.

Taking a step back, the concerns raised are not ignored. The arguments 
are being incorporated; ACP is mentioned in Solid26 while WAC remains 
recommended. That is the middle ground that currently seems viable from 
the whole discussion, thus keeping the promise of what was communicated 
and committed to in the CG as well as acknowledging raised concerns.

Cheers
Christoph


[1] https://github.com/w3c-cg/solid/issues/35
[2026-03-20] 
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-solid/2026Mar/0019.html
[2026-02-04] 
https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2026-02-04.md

On 28/04/2026 00:36, Jesse Wright wrote:
> 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 1^st  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 
> <https://github.com/solid/specification/issues/773#issue-4187138731>
>
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Jesse Wright
> DPhil Computer Science
> Jesus College
>
> mailto:jesse.wright@cs.ox.ac.uk <mailto:jesse.wright@cs.ox.ac.uk>
> https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/jesse.wright/
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-wright-49823a132/
> Book a meeting: https://cal.com/jesse-wright-zdbdal/public
> Mobile: +44 7862 381 515
> WhatsApp: +61 468 669 019
>
> /My work day may look different than yours. Please do not feel 
> obligated to respond outside of your normal working hours./
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *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
>
>
>
>