Connecting people, data, and apps without centralization

Connecting people,
data, and apps
without centralization

Ruben Verborgh

Ghent University – imec

Big Data is killing innovation.

Connected Data can bring it back.

With Solid, we aim to
reshape the relationship
between people, their data,
and the apps they use.

Apps, data, and people
The Solid ecosystem
Connecting data

Apps, data, and people
The Solid ecosystem
Connecting data

Solid is about choice.

The Solid ecosystem enables people to pick the apps they need, while
storing their data wherever they want.

People control their data, and share it
with the apps and people they choose.

People choose where they store
every single piece of data they produce.

They can grant apps and people access
to very specific parts of their data.

Separating app and storage competition
drives independent innovation.

Apps, data, and people
The Solid ecosystem
Connecting data

Solid is not a company or organisation.
Solid is not (just) software.

Solid is an ecosystem
- standards enable interoperability
Solid is a movement
- shifting the app builder mindset
Solid is a community
- different people, companies, and organisations

Anyone can build or host
software for Solid.

a server at home and/or
at your workplace
rent server space
use one of the
free community servers

The Solid server acts as a data pod
that stores and guards your data.

a regular Web server
- with support for access control
- with support for Linked Data
application-agnostic
- build any application
- application-specific logic resides in clients
just like your website
- your data can be opened with any app

A typical data pod can contain
any data you create or need online.

profile 👤
photos 🖼
comments 🗣
likes 👍
… ✨

Solid clients are browser or native apps
that read from or write to your data pod.

you give apps permission
- choose very precisely what they can access
friends give you permission
- choose very precisely what you can access
apps deliver a unified experience
- browse your friends’ pictures along with yours

Any app you can envision,
you can build with Solid.

calendar 📅
social feed 👥
photo sharing 📸
conference organization system 🎤
… ✨

The Solid server and several apps exist
and are usable for developers.

Solid server
- store your data online with access control
- free storage at solid.community and inrupt.net
apps
- data browser
- contacts
- photos
- meeting organizer
- …
libraries
- authentication
- data processing
- …

Solid is transitioning from research project
into an ecosystem backed by start-ups.

MIT has been our home
- initial development of server and apps
Inrupt is accelerating development
- open up the ecosystem for all
- maintain common building blocks as open source
- create tooling for developers
- offer services and apps

Apps, data, and people
The Solid ecosystem
Connecting data

Decentralized apps have many back-ends. Back-ends work with many apps.

The current approach to building APIs
does not play well with decentralization.

When clients do not bind to HTTP requests,
APIs can evolve independently of app logic.

Interoperability challenges in Solid
are solved through Linked Data in RDF.

If we all store our own data,
how do we connect it to others’ data?
How can apps share data,
without too many prior agreements?
How do we integrate data
from multiple data pods?

With RDF, every piece of data
can link to any other piece of data.

{
  "@context":  "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "id":        "#ruben-likes-cdl2019",
  "type":      "Like",
  "actor":     "https://ruben.verborgh.org/profile/#me",
  "object":    "https://connected-data.london/#2019",
  "published": "2019-10-04T09:00:00Z"
}

Data shapes and their semantics
enable layered compatibility.

{
  "@context":  "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "id":        "#ruben-likes-cdl2019",
  "type":      "Like",
  "actor":     "https://ruben.verborgh.org/profile/#me",
  "object":    "https://connected-data.london/#2019",
  "published": "2019-10-04T09:00:00Z"
}

Different source data
can be concatenated.

{
  "@context":  "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "@graph": [{
    "type":      "Like",
    "actor":     "https://ruben.verborgh.org/profile/#me",
    "object":    "https://connected-data.london/#2019",
    "published": "2019-10-04T09:00:00Z"
  },{
    "type":      "Like",
    "actor":     "https://example.org/people/george#me",
    "object":    "https://connected-data.london/#2019",
    "published": "2019-10-04T09:05:00Z"
  }]
}

The developer experience is the most
crucial factor for Solid success.

front-end developers build
the apps people see
together with UX designers,
they bring Solid to people
enabling developers
means enabling ourselves

Simple tasks should be simple,
complex tasks should be manageable.

People think RDF is a pain
because it is complicated.
The truth is even worse.

RDF is painfully simplistic,
but it allows you to work with real-world data
and problems that are horribly complicated.
Dan Brickley & Libby Miller

Frameworks can provide
a simple component experience.

<LoggedIn>
  <p>Welcome, <Value src="user.firstName"/></p>
  <Image src="user.image" defaultSrc="profile.svg"/>
  <ul>
    <li><Link href="user.inbox">Your inbox</Link></li>
    <li><Link href="user.homepage">Your homepage</Link></li>
  </ul>
  <h2>Your friends</h2>
  <List src="user.friends.firstName"/>
</LoggedIn>

These components rely on
micro-query expressions.

<LoggedIn>
  <p>Welcome, <Value src="user.firstName"/></p>
  <Image src="user.image" defaultSrc="profile.svg"/>
  <ul>
    <li><Link href="user.inbox">Your inbox</Link></li>
    <li><Link href="user.homepage">Your homepage</Link></li>
  </ul>
  <h2>Your friends</h2>
  <List src="user.friends.firstName"/>
</LoggedIn>

LDflex exposes Linked Data’s flexibility without RDF’s complexity.

data.user.name
data.user.friends
data.user.friends.firstName
data.user.friends.friends.firstName
data['https://ruben.verborgh.org/profile/#me'].blog

LDflex is a domain-specific language
for JavaScript developers.

every expression is valid JavaScript
- data.user.friend.firstName
it feels like a local object
- …but actually uses Proxy
it behaves like a Web query
- await data.user.friend.firstName
- fetches friends from your data pod…
- …but can fetch their names from their data pods!

Connecting people, data, and apps without centralization

People choose where they store every single piece of data they produce.

They can grant apps and people access to very specific parts of their data.

Separating app and storage competition drives independent innovation.

Solid is not a company or organisation. Solid is not (just) software.

Anyone can build or host software for Solid.

The Solid server acts as a data pod that stores and guards your data.

A typical data pod can contain any data you create or need online.

Solid clients are browser or native apps that read from or write to your data pod.

Any app you can envision, you can build with Solid.

The Solid server and several apps exist and are usable for developers.

Solid is transitioning from research project into an ecosystem backed by start-ups.

Decentralized apps have many back-ends. Back-ends work with many apps.

The current approach to building APIs does not play well with decentralization.

When clients do not bind to HTTP requests, APIs can evolve independently of app logic.

Interoperability challenges in Solid are solved through Linked Data in RDF.

With RDF, every piece of data can link to any other piece of data.

Data shapes and their semantics enable layered compatibility.

Different source data can be concatenated.

The developer experience is the most crucial factor for Solid success.

Simple tasks should be simple, complex tasks should be manageable.

Frameworks can provide a simple component experience.

These components rely on micro-query expressions.

LDflex exposes Linked Data’s flexibility without RDF’s complexity.

LDflex is a domain-specific language for JavaScript developers.

We need to investigate technology for large numbers of small datasets.

Connecting people, data, and apps without centralization

Connecting people,
data, and apps
without centralization

People choose where they store
every single piece of data they produce.

They can grant apps and people access
to very specific parts of their data.

Separating app and storage competition
drives independent innovation.

Solid is not a company or organisation.
Solid is not (just) software.

Anyone can build or host
software for Solid.

The Solid server acts as a data pod
that stores and guards your data.

A typical data pod can contain
any data you create or need online.

Solid clients are browser or native apps
that read from or write to your data pod.

Any app you can envision,
you can build with Solid.

The Solid server and several apps exist
and are usable for developers.

Solid is transitioning from research project
into an ecosystem backed by start-ups.

The current approach to building APIs
does not play well with decentralization.

When clients do not bind to HTTP requests,
APIs can evolve independently of app logic.

Interoperability challenges in Solid
are solved through Linked Data in RDF.

With RDF, every piece of data
can link to any other piece of data.

Data shapes and their semantics
enable layered compatibility.

Different source data
can be concatenated.

The developer experience is the most
crucial factor for Solid success.

Simple tasks should be simple,
complex tasks should be manageable.

Frameworks can provide
a simple component experience.

These components rely on
micro-query expressions.

LDflex is a domain-specific language
for JavaScript developers.

We need to investigate technology
for large numbers of small datasets.

Connecting people,
data, and apps
without centralization