Solid Standardisation Journey

Data on the Web should not be locked in to particular systems or be only readable by the applications which created it. Users should be free to switch between applications and share data between them.

The aims of the Solid project are in line with those of the Web itself: empowerment towards an equitable, informed and interconnected society. Solid adds to existing Web standards to realise a space where individuals can maintain their autonomy, control their data and privacy, and choose applications and services to fulfil their needs.

• Architecture of the World Wide Web, Volume One (AWWW)
• Ethical Web Principles (EWP)
• W3C Community and Business Group Process, W3C Process Document
• W3C Solid Community Group Charter
• W3C Solid Community Group Contributing Guidelines

Axiom 0a: Universality 2

Any resource of significance should be given a URI.

Axiom 2b: identity

the significance of identity for a given URI is determined by the person who owns the URI, who first determined what it points to.

URI ownership is a relation between a URI and a social entity, such as a person, organization, or specification. URI ownership gives the relevant social entity certain rights, including:

• to pass on ownership of some or all owned URIs to another owner—delegation; and
• to associate a resource with an owned URI—URI allocation.

URI allocation is the process of associating a URI with a resource. Allocation can be performed both by resource owners and by other parties.

[..] to describe the interoperability between different classes of products by using Web communication protocols, global identifiers, authentication and authorization mechanisms, data formats and shapes, notifications, and query interfaces.

Overview of Solid Technical Reports (work items)

• Protocol
• Identity and Profiles
• Authentication, Authorization, Notifications, Interoperability
• Quality Assurance, Primers, Surveys, Use Cases and Requirements

• Security Considerations
• Privacy Considerations
• Accessibility Considerations
• Internationalization Considerations
• Security and Privacy Review
• Societal Impact Review

Standards are like wine: some will age well, and others spoil. — Henry Story

Adoption in the wild takes time and influenced by many variables.

• Standards evolve;
• shaped by cooperation
• adherence to principles (process, consensus, transparency, balance, openness);
• collective empowerment;
• availability;
• voluntary adoption.

DecisionsStandards are made by those who show up.

But.. it is a privilege to have the opportunity to show up.

NIH 🙈 🙉 🙊 FUD

• How can harassment and abuse be prevented or handled?
• How would moderation or civil discourse work?
• How can a resource prohibit or consent to be annotated at fine granularity?
• How can the conditions to annotate and notify be indicated and monitored?
• How can a resource’s annotation policy and rules be respected?
• What may be the conditions to associate different identities?
• How can domain expertise be factored in?

self publishing entails that an actor can register identifiers for their content, shape and store data where they have access to, set access control[s], and use preferred applications to achieve them.

• Share use cases.
• Propose and assess solutions, proof of concepts.
• Highlight emerging patterns.
• Identify lacking standards or gaps in standardisation.
• Self-publish research, reviews, data...
• ..
• What do you think?