Where the Web things are

The world before the Web
was highly heterogeneous.

• exchanging information was hard
  • different hardware
  • different software
• innovation was hard
  • for which machines do we build?
  • for which operating systems do we build?

The Web strives to be universal
through independence of many factors.

• anyone can use the Web, regardless of

  hardware

  desktop

  phone

  tablet

  watch

  …

  software

  operating system

  browser

  app

  …

• developers are free to innovate
  • build for the Web
  • standards provide interoperability

CERN decided to make the Web
available royalty-free in 1993.

This is for everyone #london2012 #oneweb #openingceremony @webfoundation @w3c

Tim Berners-Lee July 27, 2012

The Web brings freedom of expression
to everyone across the world.

• Anyone can say anything about anything.
• We all have our own spaces,
  so we don’t have to agree.
• We can link to opinions of others
  to discuss about them.

The Web brings permissionless innovation
at a global scale.

• Anyone can build anything for any reason.
• You don’t need anyone’s permission
  to join the Web and launch a new idea.
  • not the case in app stores

The first threat to universality
were the browser wars.

• no Internet Explorer?
  • you’re out of luck!
• people needed a certain computer
  • no mobile devices
• developers depended on Microsoft’s pace
  • browsers were not very powerful

This battle was replaced by another:
the search engine wars.

• not on Google?
  • you’re out of luck!
• ranking high became more important
  than high-quality content
• the reach of your innovations
  depended on one crawler

This battle was also replaced by another:
the platform wars.

• not on Facebook?
  • you’re out of luck!
• clicks became more important
  than high-quality content
• you either compete for innovation
  with Facebook, or depend on it

Ironically, permissionless innovation
even allows platforms that prevent it.

The Facebook founder has no intention of
allowing anyone to build anything on his platform
that does not have his express approval.

Having profited mightily from the Web’s openness,
he has kicked away the ladder that elevated him
to his current eminence.

John Naughton, The Guardian

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 permissionless innovation.

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

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

• profile 👤
• photos 🖼
• comments 🗣
• likes 👍
• … ✨

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

• calendar 📅
• social feed 👥
• photo sharing 📸
• COVID-19 tracking system 👩‍⚕️
• … ✨

The case of a small metadata producer:
my scholarly publications.

• You would assume that the one source with
  the most knowledge about publications I wrote
  would be me.
• Sadly, there’s a whole range of organisations
  desperately trying to convince me that
  they know me better than I do myself.

I have been publishing my own metadata
since before most of these existed.

• The only correct publication record
  is the one that I publish myself.
  • I am the source of truth of my publication metadata.
• I have one page of all my publications
  and one page for each publication.
  • All are semantically marked up.
• I publish all of this as Linked Data.

The project Scholarly Communications Using The Decentralized Web recently started.

• funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
• collaboration between UGent and DANS
  • Ruben Verborgh and team
  • Herbert Van de Sompel and team
• from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2023

Without central actors, how to fulfill the 4 functions of scholarly communication?

registration

Prove precedence for a claim.

certification

Establish validity of a claim.

awareness

Inform other actors about a claim.

archiving

Preserve the scholarly record over time.

Current actors combine multiple functions
but decentralization removes that need.

• Scholars often choose a publisher for one function,
  but they have to accept the package deal.
  • If a publishing channel provides excellent certification,
    you might need to accept its subpar dissemination.
• When decentralizing, they can independently choose
  the most appropriate provider(s) per function.
  • Choose registrars trusted by all co-authors' institutions.
  • Archive at different institutions and long-term archives.

Researchers get their own researcher pod
in which they store all scholarly artifacts.

• Stored digitally signed documents for:
  • articles
  • revisions
  • reviews
  • comments
  • registration results
• Determine access rights for each artifact.

The resulting research network connects
researchers, artifacts, scholarly actors.