# W3C Solid Community Group: Weekly

* Date: 2023-09-06T14:00:00Z
* Call: https://meet.jit.si/solid-cg
* Chat: https://gitter.im/solid/specification
* Repository: https://github.com/solid/specification
* Status: Draft

## Present
* [Sarven Capadisli](https://csarven.ca/#i)
* Wouter Termont
* Aaron Coburn
* [Virginia Balseiro](https://virginiabalseiro.com/#me)
* [elf Pavlik](https://elf-pavlik.hackers4peace.net)
* Laurens Debackere (until 16:34CET)
* [Rahul Gupta](https://cxres.pages.dev/profile/#i)
* [Noel De Martin](https://noeldemartin.com)
* [Rigo Wenning](https://www.w3.org/People/Rigo)
* [Hadrian](https://hadrian.solidcommunity.net/profile/card#me)
* Tim Berners-Lee

---

## 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/solid/specification/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
* Virginia

### Introductions
* RW: Joined W3C in 1999 as data protection expert. I'm a lawyer registered at the bar association in Frankfurt Am Main. Since 2009, I work as W3C lawyer. As a German lawyer, W3C decided they needed a US lawyer so I do the European stuff. I am currently the only lawyer left until there's a new one. I'm in RDF since 1999. I am here today to tell you about licensing.

---

## Topics

### Next Meeting
* SC: Canceling 2023-09-13 CG meeting and 2023-09-13 Special Topic Meeting, as there is TPAC meeting on 2023-09-11.
* SC: Special Topic Meetings lists upcoming meetings and topics.

### W3C TPAC
URL: https://www.w3.org/2023/09/TPAC/

* SC: [Solid CG meeting](https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/3d93d256-f017-48c6-a509-9bd089a714e3/) on 2023-09-11T15:00:00Z.
* SC: Hybrid meeting. W3C is suggesting to use Zoom as they have equipment to help with the hybrid meeting. Hope no objections to using Zoom instead of Jitsi for this meeting. See event page for details on room location at TPAC venue.
* SC: Will propose a draft agenda. Intended to be an informative session (for anyone), and not a deep discussion of technical details of work items.
* SC: See also TPAC [Breakout sessions proposals](https://github.com/w3c/tpac2023-breakouts/) on Wednesday.
* SC: Does anyone want to volunteer to coordinate the group in person?
* LD: I volunteer, I will be there in person.

### Special Topic Meetings
URL: https://github.com/solid/specification/discussions/555

### W3C Solid Community Group and WebAgents Community Group Joint Meeting
URL: https://hackmd.io/ftVbmvj0R0Oh6EsPWTEkwQ

* SC: Meeting [Autonomous Agents on the Web](https://www.w3.org/groups/cg/webagents/) (WebAgents) on 2023-09-26 (Special Topic Meeting slot).
* SC: Intended to be an informative session for both groups. Possibility to identify areas for future collaboration.
* SC: Topic proposals welcome at hackmd.

### Solid CG Charter
URL: https://github.com/solid/process/pull/323

* SC: CG approved in [2023-08-30 CG meeting](https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2023-08-30.md#solid-wg-char). Minor delay on dotting the i's and crossing the t's: Legal and Vision checks. Still effective 2023-09-01. Amendments can follow.
* SC:
* Solid vision: [requested review from TimBL](https://matrix.to/#/!QxZtVBYQfMeMTnespj:gitter.im/$PV_1sBrd6HFM2BpFt1V3DoLtvyOy02OVP-D0Vq9zAOk).
* Legal check: [requested review from RW](https://github.com/solid/process/blob/7916591d1ffdc4cfae7cf2c8a11772c198ae7db0/solid-cg-charter.md#license).
* SC: If there are no rights or licensing incompatibilities or patent policy complications for the CG or the proposed WG, the PR can be merged (including any editorial clarifications) and resolving [MIT License and/or W3C CLA and FSA](https://github.com/solid/process/issues/327).
* SC: Any other changes to the CG charter will follow the "Amendments to this Charter" process.
* SC: Relatively minor follow up: I am looking into latest published version URL. Admin stuff: Publishing at w3.org entails copying CG charter into a WordPress page available from the [W3C Solid CG homepage](https://www.w3.org/community/solid/). Roughly half of the CGs with a charter use w3.org and the other half uses github.io.
* SC: We'll have some follow-ups next.
* SC: I'd like TBL to comment on Vision and RW on Legal.
* TBL: On licensing, I posted my conclusion on Matrix. If the charter is finalized that is incompatible with you wanting my review. In particular snippets of code you want to paste in your program. We looked at the MIT license but then looked at MDN, and they say that any snippet wherever it is, will be public domain. I think the MDN people had a good idea. That discussion obviously did not make its way into the charter.
* WT: Thanks TBL for the input. Discussion on the GH issue was about MIT license, which is what was incorporated into the charter, but I think it is definitely possible to add public domain for snippets.
* TBL: Happy with MIT license. But CC0 for code snippets in specs or tutorials.
* SC: I think it's a work item.
* TBL: No, part of a work item. Code snippets within a document that could have W3C/MIT license, but snippets are CC0.
* SC: This licensing issue is about the work item, you are saying distinguishing snippets. That was one of the suggestions in the issue.
* RW: I want to reassure TBL that the only issue I see is the notices. Imagine you have software and need notices. We already have a practice of notices, you can take the code somewhere, but then a multitude of notices. IF we accept that notices should be provided, then the CLA would already do what Tim wants. You can co-license with MIT because CLA says "I grant perpetual license with no obligation to reproduce, distribute, etc.." meaning we have it already. This is rather later for WG, when you want to clearly distinguish the specification with the rules where you don't want someone making derivatives of the spec, but you want the code/pseudo code to be reused as much as possible. Similar issue to test-suite, where you don't want to ??? As it stands, the things TBL wants to accomplish can be done now. From a legal standpoint we are clear. Clarify pseudocode is MIT license.
* WT: As I understood Tim, he wanted to be able to copy code snippets from specs without the need to also copy a copyright notice into the derivative work. Even snippets in the spec follows MIT, the notice needs to be included. If we want to be able to copy snippet and no notice we need ??? My question to RW is once we go from CG to WG, our specifications become W3C document. W3C license says snippets fall under W3C software license. As we transition, how can this be compatible with snippets being public domain?
* RW: We allow specification to have a ??? under W3C license. I'd insist we keep ??? and have a disclaimer. The only thing we need to take is notification, which is a nuisance. It's no issue to transition even if you put code snippets as being public domain. I want to prevent some big corp coming, taking the work, making incompatible changes and claiming they can. What Tim wants is being able to take snippets and put in software with no hassle, but we still should be able to say something is not compatible with what the group consensus was. You have to include an adapted MIT license, I will help you do so. In transitioning to WG, I don't see any issue.
* WT: Even if W3C licensing document says code snippets must be under software license, we still can change that license?
* RW: Yes.
* SC: How do we go from what we have in the charter right now to finalizing, merging charter after making clarification? Does anyone have any objections? Especially TBL. Does what RW suggests work for you?
* RW: To reiterate: the plan is to make a W3C software license with no notification but a disclaimer.
* TBL: Happy to ??? but only for the code snippets that the notification is removed. I want what the WG produces to be usable by people.
* WT: RW, does what we currently have in charter accomplish what you suggest?
* RW: What is in the charter is not in the document and the object of the rule is not clear. In the charter we can give the precise URL of a specification we can make assertions. Having MIT does not do the trick because of notification. I suggest we put W3C software license and in the annex say the code snippets are under W3C license without application of notification. I may want to create a W3C snippet license that does exactly what Tim wants but this will take a long time. There's no issue whatsoever with spec authors ??? I can give you a 3-liner for the charter so contributors commit to this.
* WT: I agree we should write whatever license we use in the documents. My question is given the text of the charter, which informs the line that should be in the documents, can we simply switch MIT to "W3C software without notice"?
* RW: Yes.
* RG: My question to RW is, is it already the case in copyright law that if you take a small portion of the work and you're doing it in a reasonable way you don't even need to worry about copyright because you're not using it as is?
* RW: If you never travel to Europe in your life you could operate this way. In the US you have fair use sometimes.
* TBL: But it's hairy.
* RW: In Europe your code does not need to be ??? I would not spare those 3 lines that we have to write to save hassle for people.
* SC: Pre-proposal: replacing MIT license with W3C software without notice. We can come back to making the text clear in the specs themselves.
* TBL: Good to have the intention in the charter.
* SC: Let's make that change request in the PR. Agreement is to merge the charter PR.
* RW: Main issue remaining is, if people contribute and commit to the CLA it requires notification so at some point we can have a web form where people give up the notification for those who originally contributed text to the spec. When is it recharterting? Current charter, when does it apply? IS it in effect?
* SC: It was effective September 1st. We're talking about the CG charter. First charter. Amendments can come if we want to make changes.
* RW: How can I get evidence of the commitment? The intended result is clear. Probability that somebody comes and says they did not commit is close to zero, but to do it correctly we must record commitment.
* WT: Does this differ from the process where we get a FSA?
* RW: We can do that on the same step.
* SC: That's on the CG page somewhere. There's a way to tell who made a commitment and who didn't.
* SC: Objections to making the change to W3C license without notice and following up with specific text to introduce in text for next releases?
* SC: We'll merge the charter and if we find an error we can have another discussion and amend.
* WT: +1
* TBL: +1
* eP: +1

DECISION: apply suggested change, SC to merge.

* eP: Rigo mentioned something about test suite. Does the charter already address or do we need to do something special?
* RW: Test suite is double licenced, you don't need to do anything. If you make claims of conformance you cannot alter.
* eP: For test suite it is better not to use MIT but the one recommended by W3C.
* RW: Not very different. For the test suite, for claims of conformance or inted to use it for claims of conformance, you cannot take altered code, because then your claims would be false. Copyright is an additional kind of helper, not main target.
* WT: The sentences in the charter about this is exactly what W3C has about double licensing, so we don't deviate from that.
* SC: RW, in the license section we have to "note that". Do you recommend that we keep that text in or remove?
* RW: First of all you say WG instead of CG which is wrong. I think per W3C process this is a community process so normal process doesn't apply. I don't thin kit makes a legal different but would look nicer if you note that artifacts that become part of this group's TR will fall under W3C software license.
* WT: The notes are meant to indicate that independent of the license we use, these items will be under a WG's license.
* RW: You can leave that to the WG. I would keep the paragraph but make it so that it reads as "the intention is to..." because whether it happens or not we will decide later.
* SC: Can we add a revision to that before we merge? WT.
* WT: Yes.
* eP: In the next 5 minutes?
* SC: Yes.
* RW: You don't have to use test suite license for tests.
* SC: Can we draft in the minutes now?
* RG: Can I ask RW to put the recommendations somewhere here we can follow?
* RW: I can create a pull request.
* RG: Appreciate it.
* WT: "Note that the intention of this group is to propose its documents as Technical Reports to a Working Group, where the published documents will fall under the [W3C Document License]."
* SC: Works for me.
* RW: Completely fine.
* WT: "Note that the intention of this group is to propose its software artifacts and code snippets included in documents to a Working Group's Technical Reports, where they will fall under the [W3C Software License] without notification obligation."
* RW: That's fine, exactly what I wanted.
* WT: "In accordance with the CLA, the group licenses all its software artifacts under the [W3C Software license], but without notification obligation."
* RW: Fine. The important part is distinction between document that has rules and software artifacts.
* eP: Software artifacts, only snippets or something other than test suites?
* RW: Here we talk about the rules, understanding software snippets that are written in the spec: you have a rule "xyz, software must do abc, here is an example". When you have other software you want to put under W3C you have a free choice of license. My favorite is Apache because it allows commercial usage but offers patent protection.
* SC: TBL it'd be good to have your review on the charter.
* TBL: I thought I gave thumbs up on Matrix.
* SC: The PR would be good.
* TBL: You want me to approve the thing in the hackmd? I can approve something in Matrix.
* RW: I would make a PR and put in the charter then submit charter again.
* SC: WT will make change request, I will commit those changes, and TBL thumbs up on the PR, then I merge the charter.
* TBL: Ping me on matrix when it's ready.
* SC: Thanks.

### Horizontal and Wide Reviews for Technical Reports
URL: https://github.com/solid/specification/issues/256

* SC: Recommend making an explicit request to TAG to review the Solid Protocol.
* SC: Will write a short explainer. I have drafted a review request. Will share in chats.
* SC: Should review tests, test suite.. including the reference work items. I can't stress enough how important [Solid QA](https://solidproject.org/ED/qa) is whether in CG or WG. Would people like to be more familiar with Solid QA in a Special Topic Meeting?

### Solid Protocol Version 0.11.0
URL: https://github.com/solid/specification/milestone/7

* SC: Let's make sure to add any missing issues/PRs that can reasonably make it into this release. The ED includes class 3 and higher changes, and some in the pipeline. See [Solid Protocol ED Changelog](https://solidproject.org/ED/protocol#changelog).

### Tracking specs changing to use RFC 911x
URL: https://github.com/solid/specification/issues/471#issuecomment-1685201553

* SC: Thinking that ED specs can update refs independently.
* SC: Re https://github.com/solid/specification/blob/main/meetings/2023-08-30.md#tracking-specs-changing-to-use-rfc-911x
>* WT: Notifications protocol refers to a different version as the Solid protocol because the other updated specs do not use the reference on the normative section.
* SC: I'd like a clarification on the quoted as the minutes is not detailed enough.

#### Feat: update HTTP refs in protocol
URL: https://github.com/solid/specification/pull/561

>* SC: Seems okay to merge (with potential minor tweaks) but I'd suggest to gather more feedback.
* SC: We messaged in CSS/NSS/app-dev chats already. PR open 2 weeks. Let's go.

### WIP Implementation Feedback
* SC: Please share any implementation feedback or interest to implement. Links to products/projects and demos welcome.

### Braid
URL: https://github.com/braid-org/braid-spec

* SC: ?