# W3C Solid Community Group: Weekly

* Date: 2024-05-01T14:00:00Z
* Call: https://meet.jit.si/solid-cg
* Chat: https://matrix.to/#/#solid_specification:gitter.im
* Repository: https://github.com/solid/specification
* Status: Published

## Present
* Hadrian Zbarcea
* [elf Pavlik](https://elf-pavlik.hackers4peace.net)
* Aaron Coburn
* [Ted Thibodeau](https://github.com/TallTed/) (he/him) ([OpenLink Software](https://www.openlinksw.com/))
* TimBL

## Announcements

### Meeting Guidelines
* [W3C Solid Community Group Calendar](https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/solid/calendar).
* [W3C Solid Community Group Meeting Guidelines](https://github.com/w3c-cg/solid/blob/main/meetings/README.md).
* No audio or video recording, or automated transcripts without consent. Meetings are transcribed and made public. If consent is withheld by anyone, recording/retention must not occur.
* Join queue to talk.
* Topics can be proposed at the bottom of the agenda to be discussed as time allows. Make it known if a topic is urgent or cannot be postponed.

### Participation and Code of Conduct
* [Join the W3C Solid Community Group](https://www.w3.org/community/solid/join), [W3C Account Request](http://www.w3.org/accounts/request), [W3C Community Contributor License Agreement](https://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/cla/).
* [Solid Code of Conduct](https://github.com/solid/process/blob/main/code-of-conduct.md), [Positive Work Environment at W3C: Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct](https://www.w3.org/Consortium/cepc/)
* Operating principle for effective participation is to allow access across disabilities, across country borders, and across time. Feedback on tooling and meeting timing is welcome.
* If this is your first time, welcome! please introduce yourself.

### Scribes
* Aaron Coburn

### Introductions

---

## Topics

### Special Topic Meetings
URL: https://github.com/orgs/solid/projects/16/views/1

* HZ: spoke with Tim about use cases. Many types, including technical and governance related (e.g., migrating pods between providers)
* ...: interested in proposing an API for interacting with a Pod provider (e.g., create/delete/list/archive Pods)
* ...: something like this is necessary for federation-like structures
* eP: it would be good to have this written down with the specific goals and actors
* HZ: without a standardized APIs, it is hard to have CLI tools that work across providers
* AC: +1, whatever we will call it. I see it as significant missing feature at present
* HZ: looking at ways to formalize use cases, ideally in RDF. The only tools for this seem to be UML, and there is an [onto-UML](https://ontouml.org/) tool, but if others have ideas, please share
* eP: is there an example of a UML-based use case?
* HZ: there are zillions online. They tend to be high level. The most important aspect of these diagrams tends to be the description. Will send examples.
* ...: The use cases special topics meeting was cancelled on 2024-04-30. When would be a good time to schedule this? (Looks like 2024-05-07 will be a good date)
* TBL: will the use cases discussion be asynchronous?
* HZ: this will need to be async
* eP: posting links to existing use cases: [interop](https://github.com/solid/data-interoperability-panel/issues/18), [constraints](https://solid.github.io/authorization-panel/authorization-ucr/#uc-client-constraints), [authorization](https://github.com/solid/authorization-panel/tree/main/proposals/evaluation)
* HZ: we will want to distinguish between use cases that target servers and those that target apps
* TBL: certain use cases will focus on servers, some will focus on apps, and some will focus on both
* HZ: ultimately, we will need to do both
* eP: I can provide some use cases to exemplify some areas that are currently missing from Solid
* HZ: I would be happy to contribute
* eP: we can start with a HackMD document
* eP: there is a scheduled meeting for [Web of Things and Solid on 16 May, 2024](https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/97420d36-f1d1-47cf-ab35-701c6b8b4cc1/). We should keep that in mind
* HZ: I sent an email to the DID group, but that's currently in moderation
* AC: Generally, the first post gets moderated, in my experience it usualy happens witin 24h, you may need to check the list archive to see if it went through.
* HZ: I will keep an eye on the list. This will likely take quite a bit of time to figure out and will be async
* eP: are we happy with the time or should we find a different time?
* HZ: it is hard to find a good time with US West coast and Europe. Sounds like we'll keep the existing time for now
* eP: VB scheduled the security best practices special topic meeting for 21 May, 2024 - https://github.com/solid/security-bp/pull/2

ACTION: HZ will schedule an [STM meeting about use cases on 7 May, 2024](https://github.com/orgs/solid/projects/16/views/1)

ACTION: HZ will create a [HackMD document for use cases](https://hackmd.io/@solid/S1WC9RkMC/edit) and share with the group via gitter

### WIP Implementation Feedback

#### Tentative, preliminary, pragmatic plans for a public CSS instance

* ME: I have a conflict. we have a day off. will continue providing solidweb.org(NSS), solidweb.me and teamid.live(both CSS).

(discussion postponed for next meeting)

* eP: discussed Joachim about CSS re: bring your own domain name. This could be challenging, but eP will create an issue with a feature request
* ...: this seems like a fundamental issue with Pod providers supporting custom domain names for users
* TBL: nginx & apache both support this
* eP: with CSS, this is built with components and it would require some changes to the architecture.
* ...: this is apparently not impossible but is non-trivial for CSS
* ...: i.e., this is possible but will require work. eP will consider contributing to this effort
* HZ: this will be an interesting use case to capture
* eP: the DNS registrations of the domain names mentioned by ME will expire in a few months. There may be some expectations for practices for various Pod providers. We don't want people to be disappointed with Solid because links disappear due to registration lapses
* HZ: there is a growing list of Pod providers on the Solid Providers page. Perhaps we should consider a search engine for that page?
* ...: for example, Activity Pods is a provider but is not listed on that page
* TBL: does AP support bring-your-own-domain?
* HZ: they do not support Solid-OIDC (they use Mastadon-account-based login)
* TBL: how would a search engine find them?
* HZ: a search function
* eP: what is the process for getting listed on that page?
* HZ: PR via github, but the process gets in the way
* TBL: the Solid process needs to be improved

### WG Charter

* HZ: last week we decided on the name, no news from PA on the status
* ...: any updates from others?
* ...: will reach out to PA for a status update

ACTION: HZ will reach out to PA to get a status of the WG charter

### JavaScript Solid-OIDC client

* eP: what is the status of this? The code currently uses a much earlier version of the Solid-OIDC spec
* HZ: this is on the roadmap, but there is a resources constraint on the timeframe
* eP: are the proposals on the issue or are they internal?
* HZ: spoke with Nic who had several ideas, but they haven't been formalized
* AC: we haven't settled on a particular approach, there are few ways which are not trivial. We are looking at real revamp of JS tooling. We want to do it in a way that would support solid in a longer way.
* HZ: a way forward might be to invitie Nic to one of our meetings
* eP: that is a good idea. I will also reach out to Wouter so that we can discuss this from both the client and server perspectives
* HZ: this should also be captured in the use cases
* HZ: we could also reach out to app developers. If we show that there is a high level of interest, then this could be a higher priority
* eP: the big advantages here are related to claim pushing, especially with access grants
* ...: agree that we can handle that with use cases

ACTION: eP will contact the CSS developers to find out when they might be available to discuss
ACTION: HZ (or AC) will reach out to Nic