| I don't see how the spelling errors in the spec can possibly discredit the technical merits of it. There are some parts of the project that I don't like or maybe simply don't understand. For example, its user stories include an utterly simplistic privacy system [1]. [1] https://github.com/solid/solid-spec/blob/master/UserStories/... What if Ian starts spamming everyone on the entire web (let's call this 'root node') with his "you've got a file from Ian" notices? Some kind of rate limiting system is required in this case, but is it really possible to decentralize such a system? I imagine a system of many communities that can be subscribed to, think of subreddits, with their own behavioral rules (code of conduct?) requirements, groups, permissions, blacklists etc.
So if Ian and Jane both are subscribed to the same community that grants them the permission to do the described actions (thus Ian is not banned nor is over his rate limit to send his notice to Jane, and Jane's privacy settings permit people like Ian to send their notices to her), they can be performed. I'd call that a 'third party node'. Such a system would also solve the problem of discoverability. I expect the rise of the githubs and gitlabs of Solid if this problem is not accounted for early on. Let's say these two users already got to know each other and they want to decouple from the restrictions of the third party node they were met at, how can they pair their 'profile nodes' so that there's no more third party constrains to limit their interactions? Let's say the profile nodes include a social, facebook-y, functionality in them.
Ian sends a direct pairing request to Jane. She accepts, by including him to a personal custom group named 'new friends' that will restrict him to be able to see only a few of her photos (maybe based on the tags that were used on the photos, maybe based on creation timestamp ranges so he is able to see only her most recent/ probably less embarrassing ones, who knows, she's the one to decide).
On her personal node, it's her rules. Much better control than the current social media sites provide. This calls for a really privilege-centered system. Can Solid provide it? |