W3C Solid Community Group: Weekly

Present

Announcements

Meeting Guidelines

  • W3C Solid Community Group Calendar.
  • W3C Solid Community Group Meeting Guidelines.
  • 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

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 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, constraints, authorization
  • 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. 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

ACTION: HZ will create a HackMD document for use cases 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

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