4 ms·

AFAICT there are literally no apps to try this on. Why did they decide to announce this and publicize it before a basic, well-polished, example was ready? The p

by gfodor 8y ago

AFAICT there are literally no apps to try this on. Why did they decide to announce this and publicize it before a basic, well-polished, example was ready? The pod signup process is using vanilla bootstrap, there wasn't even a visual design pass.

galfarragem 8y ago
It seems kind of vaporware to test people's reactions and get allies. It's definitely interesting and could be game changing if well implemented. Microsoft and Apple could push it and win an important battle.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  I am curious: Is it actually worthwhile to solicit this kind of “ally” interest? I would think you’d attract mostly onlookers, people who are puttering around thinking about these topics. People who may just gum up the mailing lists. Is it really likely to attract actual contributors? I’d think that comes more from providing something that solves a real problem for some obscure group of people.
ericand 8y ago
Especially considering that they claim you can make an app in a lunch hour. They were just one lunch hour from a "solid" launch!
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
isn't there something about if you wait to launch until you have a basic well-polished example you launched too late?
- gfodor 8y ago
  no, the saying is that if you aren't embarrassed by your first version you've launched too late. it doesn't mean that if you launch something embarrassing you've launched on time. a new, far reaching platform for internet data exchange launching without a basic proof of concept seems like a clear and obvious gap that should have been filled before launch.
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    i.e. A->B != !A->!B
jcoffland 8y ago
https://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/SoLiD https://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/SoLiD
- tuukkah 8y ago
  Do some of these work? I haven't been able to login to any including the ones listed here: https://github.com/solid/solid-apps https://github.com/solid/solid-apps
kjetilk 8y ago
Well, I guess we just asked the opposite question: Is there any reason to keep this sub-surface any longer, and we didn't find any such reason... :-) So, it is just "release early, release often". So, the code and the spec has been out there for a long time. I mean, some of this stuff is really old. Us geeks have been thinking about decentralized social networking since the dawn of ages, and it seems like the rest of the world is starting to wake up to its necessity too. So, I think the timing is pretty OK now. Like, Linux didn't come with a well-polished example either... It wasn't even intended to out-do Minix. :-) I guess you could say that we could say even more clearly that this is a prototype, and we have a roadmap where it will stay a prototype for some time. But we are seeing people finding it interesting that we're actually not trying to engineer something from the ground, we are seeing what kind of impact we can have with pretty well tested Web technologies. I suspect we have a lot less development to do to have a great social impact than you'd have to do if went full P2P. At the same time, there is a large graveyard out there of failed decentralized social networks, so we are under no illusion that this is going to be easy. It is going to be pretty hard. Still, I don't see any reason why we should be sub-surface any longer.
- jellicle 8y ago
  It would be good to have a set of demo applications that do something that can't be done by competitors. I read the website and I don't really get it. If I give an app read access to my data, they've got a copy. Maybe they don't have the canonical copy, the original, but they've certainly got A copy. How do I have control? As far as I can tell you've reinvented Facebook with a better API. Why wouldn't someone just embrace and extend to take control? "Oh yes, we made some changes to our PODs so you won't get full functionality with other people's PODs. You can just move your data to our company with a click of a button, CLICK HERE, and everything will work great! Also, we no longer support exports of data, sorry. But we'll take really good care of your data, we promise!" Maybe I'm dumb and I just don't get it, that's certainly possible. But maybe you're not doing a good job of explaining it.
- gfodor 8y ago
  I think I saw a few example apps linked elsewhere -- the apps section of the marketing-oriented website just said "coming soon." I think it'd be a good idea to show these apps off, even if they are unfinished. I know I'm personally skeptical of any specification that lacks working examples, and the website, due to its lack of apps, implies there are none (hence my "afaict.") good luck with the launch!
j45 8y ago
Why? The web seemed to grow on with this kind of roll out.

by gfodor 8y ago

galfarragem 8y ago

It seems kind of vaporware to test people's reactions and get allies. It's definitely interesting and could be game changing if well implemented. Microsoft and Apple could push it and win an important battle.

erikpukinskis 8y ago
I am curious: Is it actually worthwhile to solicit this kind of “ally” interest? I would think you’d attract mostly onlookers, people who are puttering around thinking about these topics. People who may just gum up the mailing lists. Is it really likely to attract actual contributors? I’d think that comes more from providing something that solves a real problem for some obscure group of people.

ericand 8y ago

Especially considering that they claim you can make an app in a lunch hour. They were just one lunch hour from a "solid" launch!

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

isn't there something about if you wait to launch until you have a basic well-polished example you launched too late?

gfodor 8y ago
no, the saying is that if you aren't embarrassed by your first version you've launched too late. it doesn't mean that if you launch something embarrassing you've launched on time. a new, far reaching platform for internet data exchange launching without a basic proof of concept seems like a clear and obvious gap that should have been filled before launch.
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  i.e. A->B != !A->!B

jcoffland 8y ago

https://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/SoLiD https://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/SoLiD

tuukkah 8y ago
Do some of these work? I haven't been able to login to any including the ones listed here: https://github.com/solid/solid-apps https://github.com/solid/solid-apps

kjetilk 8y ago

Well, I guess we just asked the opposite question: Is there any reason to keep this sub-surface any longer, and we didn't find any such reason... :-) So, it is just "release early, release often". So, the code and the spec has been out there for a long time. I mean, some of this stuff is really old. Us geeks have been thinking about decentralized social networking since the dawn of ages, and it seems like the rest of the world is starting to wake up to its necessity too. So, I think the timing is pretty OK now. Like, Linux didn't come with a well-polished example either... It wasn't even intended to out-do Minix. :-) I guess you could say that we could say even more clearly that this is a prototype, and we have a roadmap where it will stay a prototype for some time. But we are seeing people finding it interesting that we're actually not trying to engineer something from the ground, we are seeing what kind of impact we can have with pretty well tested Web technologies. I suspect we have a lot less development to do to have a great social impact than you'd have to do if went full P2P. At the same time, there is a large graveyard out there of failed decentralized social networks, so we are under no illusion that this is going to be easy. It is going to be pretty hard. Still, I don't see any reason why we should be sub-surface any longer.

jellicle 8y ago
It would be good to have a set of demo applications that do something that can't be done by competitors. I read the website and I don't really get it. If I give an app read access to my data, they've got a copy. Maybe they don't have the canonical copy, the original, but they've certainly got A copy. How do I have control? As far as I can tell you've reinvented Facebook with a better API. Why wouldn't someone just embrace and extend to take control? "Oh yes, we made some changes to our PODs so you won't get full functionality with other people's PODs. You can just move your data to our company with a click of a button, CLICK HERE, and everything will work great! Also, we no longer support exports of data, sorry. But we'll take really good care of your data, we promise!" Maybe I'm dumb and I just don't get it, that's certainly possible. But maybe you're not doing a good job of explaining it.
gfodor 8y ago
I think I saw a few example apps linked elsewhere -- the apps section of the marketing-oriented website just said "coming soon." I think it'd be a good idea to show these apps off, even if they are unfinished. I know I'm personally skeptical of any specification that lacks working examples, and the website, due to its lack of apps, implies there are none (hence my "afaict.") good luck with the launch!

j45 8y ago

Why? The web seemed to grow on with this kind of roll out.