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Interesting that the article doesn't touch on Tim Berners-Lee's current focus: https://solidproject.org https://solidproject.org (Disclosure: I work for his sta

by Vinnl 6y ago

Interesting that the article doesn't touch on Tim Berners-Lee's current focus: https://solidproject.org https://solidproject.org (Disclosure: I work for his startup, Inrupt, which he founded to give that project a boost. Opinions here are my own though.) Although it's primarily known for allowing apps to store their users' data in a place under their users' control, for better or worse, it's built on many SemWeb technologies. And even though I'm still somewhat disillusioned about the Semantic Web (like Aaron Schwarz, I used to be enthusiastic about it way back when), but there certainly is a chance it will be interesting again when your personal (potentially private) data can be part of the Semantic Web as well. For example, if they'd have written their reviews in a Solid-based website, linking them to MusicBrainz would be a relatively small step.

laurencerowe 6y ago
The universal login aspect of Solid sounds rather like Mozilla’s Persona. What about Solid makes it more likely to succeed against the incumbents than Persona?
- Vinnl 6y ago
  There are several things that make it different, making the reason Persona failed not apply (though obviously it might still fail for different reasons): - There are several organisations behind Solid that whose raison d'etre is Solid. I'd argue that Mozilla possibly pulled the plug for Persona too early, specifically, without first adding support for it in Firefox, thereby creating massive incentive for website owners to support it. But then, it wasn't their core focus, and there was no return on investment for them, so I can see why they cancelled it. - Ironically, a wider focus. The incentive for website owners to support Persona would have been that it would be easier for potential users to join - although they already got most of that benefit by allowing sign-in with Facebook, and most people did not actually use Persona. Solid, on the other hand, has several incentives to support it. It can give organisations access to data that the user is actively curating, rather than having to provide it to different organisations individually, with it getting outdated the moment they shared it. Additionally, given how, for many organisations, data is increasingly (post-GDPR and all that) a liability and not their primary competency, outsourcing management of user data to the user themselves makes sense. And finally, there will hopefully be more people with a Solid Pod, especially in specific markets - for example, IIRC the government of Flanders was looking at giving every citizen a Pod. - It can lean on the marketing benefits of it being TimBL's main focus, which may or may not be stronger than being one of Mozilla's projects. - Depending on your definition of success, it can be as successful as Mastodon/the Fediverse is. As opposed to Persona, people can and do write apps specifically to support Solid, because it's more than just a login. Just off the top of my head, and again, personal views. But hopefully that gives some insight.

by Vinnl 6y ago

laurencerowe 6y ago

The universal login aspect of Solid sounds rather like Mozilla’s Persona. What about Solid makes it more likely to succeed against the incumbents than Persona?

Vinnl 6y ago
There are several things that make it different, making the reason Persona failed not apply (though obviously it might still fail for different reasons): - There are several organisations behind Solid that whose raison d'etre is Solid. I'd argue that Mozilla possibly pulled the plug for Persona too early, specifically, without first adding support for it in Firefox, thereby creating massive incentive for website owners to support it. But then, it wasn't their core focus, and there was no return on investment for them, so I can see why they cancelled it. - Ironically, a wider focus. The incentive for website owners to support Persona would have been that it would be easier for potential users to join - although they already got most of that benefit by allowing sign-in with Facebook, and most people did not actually use Persona. Solid, on the other hand, has several incentives to support it. It can give organisations access to data that the user is actively curating, rather than having to provide it to different organisations individually, with it getting outdated the moment they shared it. Additionally, given how, for many organisations, data is increasingly (post-GDPR and all that) a liability and not their primary competency, outsourcing management of user data to the user themselves makes sense. And finally, there will hopefully be more people with a Solid Pod, especially in specific markets - for example, IIRC the government of Flanders was looking at giving every citizen a Pod. - It can lean on the marketing benefits of it being TimBL's main focus, which may or may not be stronger than being one of Mozilla's projects. - Depending on your definition of success, it can be as successful as Mastodon/the Fediverse is. As opposed to Persona, people can and do write apps specifically to support Solid, because it's more than just a login. Just off the top of my head, and again, personal views. But hopefully that gives some insight.