Tim Berners-Lee's new decentralisation project: Social Linked data(Solid) | Hacker News Reader

Tim Berners-Lee's new decentralisation project: Social Linked data(Solid)

solid.inrupt.com

43 pointsrohan10245 comments

I've been following this project and developing for it for some time now. While it's been slow to develop, I think the combination of Linked Data and decentralization is the best way forward. Many LD schemas are widely used, and now with DIDs the Web can be joined with blockchain and other approaches to make private, trustworthy systems with self-describing data and information designed for reuse and actual AI algorithms.

Here are a couple of useful links http://computingjoy.com/blog/2016/09/26/understanding-linked...

https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm-shifts-f...

I still don’t get it.

I truly believe that until they can show a simple use case that people will use, that this site/technology will continue to live in the darkness.

Please, please put a simple use case on your website. Maybe something like how if I use pod that I can share pictures with friends and they can view them without setting up their own pod - maybe just an account somewhere, or, even better, show how I can have some pictures that are public to the world but others that only my friends can see.

Until then, this is like reading a dictionary - not useful and not very exciting.

I ran across blockstack recently and was wondering if it fit the bill. It seems like Solid minus the linked data stuff. The user keeps control of their own data just like with Solid. They have some initial apps listed here: https://app.co/blockstack

In comparison, here's a list of some Solid apps: https://github.com/solid/solid-apps

But blockstack also has a cryptotoken: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20413420

You should join the gitter channels to get to the heart of the project. "They" want it to be a community effort, to build the libraries and apps and connections. There is a lot of energy focused on supporting the community effort. The top level is about community and standards (and an "enterprise" service that plays along, but that's fine as long as it's not exclusive, which by definition it won't be). And it's a slow project, so there are some unanswered questions, but many new solutions along the way. So the whole thing moves as a front, rather than one peak.

Since it's so focused on standards and relevant use cases (shared preferences, calendars, activities, annotations, etc), if you spend some time there you'll start to see solutions developing that support and transcend what we do today. True interoperability at a very fine level that doesn't depend on one entity, doesn't violate privacy and trust. But it takes some strategy and participation. That's another reason I like it, being a person of the 90s internet (which has easily carried me to any project I care to participate in), before the startup hype, where it was about invention based on shared possibility rather than a mania to get rich no matter the effect, but now with more focus on security and experience.

I’m hugely in favour of this approach: basically it affords users ownership of their data and relegates the “platforms” to accessing and displaying that data. This would re-enable competition in the social network ‘space’ by compelling platforms to display the data in the least obnoxious manner possible and by eliminating their (future) ability to profile their users.

Of course it leaves unaddressed the “create a POD containing all your current data” aspect: some kind of creation tool that assembles such an item out of automated Facebook, Google, & cetera download tools would be very handy in this regard.

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