Solid World

05 August 2021

If there were words to describe August’s Solid World, they were – growth, collaboration, and progress. It was time to look back at all the work we’ve done since the beginning of the year. It’s safe to say we made a lot of progress! Different community members gave us updates of their goals and the work they’ve completed so far.

Updates

Before the presentations kicked off, we got updates from Ruben Verborgh and Oz Olivo. Ruben had exceptional news to tell us. After a year of hard work, he has released Community Solid Server (CSS) 1.0! If you’re a developer looking for a companion server to help build your app, or a researcher exploring the frontier of Solid, try building on CSS.

As the CSS progresses, Oz reminded us that Inrupt’s Enterprise Solid Server is also on track, with the next major release slated for this fall. Also, Inrupt recently composed the Solid Application Compatibility Survey, and they are looking to hear feedback from any app developers. With that said, we luckily got to listen to assessments from our presenters.

Presentations

SolidProject Updates: Justin Bingham

Our first presenter was Justin Bingham, the CTO at Janeiro Digital and Solid Team Member. Over the last few months, the Solid Team assigned one of the team members as the project manager to help with the different projects and initiatives. Since the change, Justin leads us through the various tasks they were able to complete. First was migrating the Community Forum to Discourse.org. The second was changing the process of the Solid Application Listing by making it a more collaborative review and submission by having it on the Forum. Their latest work is on making substantial updates to the solidproject.org website. We all will be excited to see how the changes go!

Solid DEI Updates: Jeff Zucker

Next up, Jeff Zucker, one of the creators for the Solid Team and co-chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Team. During his presentation he explained how the web was created to be a welcoming and inclusive space, and how we’ve moved away from that. With Solid, we can bring diversity, inclusion, and equity back to the web. To help pave the way, a group of Solid members created the DEI Team to help advocate for underrepresented groups. If you would like to join, you can reach out to the DEI Team’s Gitter. If you want to watch the DEI Team meetings, you can watch them here.

Solid Community Survey: Kyra Assaad

In the same breath of diversity and community, next, we heard about the Solid Community Survey. Kyra Assaad, a Solid team member, co-chair for the DEI Team, and Product Designer at Inrupt, presented the stats from the survey. Before going into the numbers, she expressed how the DEI and Solid Teams wanted to learn about who’s here and better ways to understand how we can foster the community. And there was so much to learn. We got to know where our community members live, how they identify, their level of knowledge (from code to general education), and ways we can encourage engagement in Solid. She also shared some of the kind words community members think about Solid, like, “Solid is a precondition to the world I want me and my kids to live in.” To help that, the DEI Team’s goal is to take the information from the survey, brainstorm initiatives, and make recommendations for the community and to the Solid Team.

W3C Solid Community Group: Sarven Capadisli

Last but not least, we heard updates from Sarven Capadisli on the W3C Solid Community Group (W3C CG) status update. He mentioned how the work in the specifications, panels, and protocols aligns for society’s betterment and those using Solid for everyday use. If you want to see how each one is doing, check out the Solid Events pages to go over Sarven’s notes.

Get Involved

After hearing from all the presenters, it was great to see the collaborative nature they all had with one another. We are heading in the right direction. As we continue to progress and meet our goals, it’s great to inform the community to see how we surpass expectations. To make this happen, we invite you to join us in the pursuit. To continue this conversation, join us on the Solid Forum or the Solid World Gitter. Want to participate in these conversations and present at a future Solid World? Fill out the Solid World speaker form. Lastly, the Solid Team can address any questions, comments, or concerns at info@solidproject.org. See you next month, September 2nd!

Community Spotlight

• Kyra Assaad – For her work on the Community Survey and her presentation of the data during Solid World.