@damon

Thank you. Yes, indeed. As it happens I was just in chat with Sébastien yesterday. They'll give a presentation at the #Solid Practitioners Meetings on the 5th of March.

#ActivityPods is positioned to bring "app development" to the intersection of the #ActivityPub and #SolidProject ecosystems, and that is very valuable. And also an #OpenStandards focused initiative.

I have revamped the #fediverse delightful lists to de-emphasize app domains and apps that have already established themselves, to highlight the innovative projects that can bring fedi to higher levels. @activitypods is on the developer list.. https://delightful.coding.social/delightful-fediverse-development/#application-development

They are well positioned to offer the 'Solution developer' stakeholders an attractive set of tools. And the opportunity is to marriage the best of 2 worlds. Which is at the same time the big challenge, coping with the worst of 2 worlds. The other day I tooted about this here: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116113963712755122

are people on here that have opinions about #Solid (the pod technology not the javascript framework / library)

why is it good / not good?

is it usable?

is it in use?

it doesn't seem to have the same popularity as i.e. #ActivityPub / the #Fediverse, even though the concept of solid pods seems to synergize quite well with the idea of a decentralized web, as far as i can tell

Gleich zwei Initiativen bringen in diesem Jahr einen Volksentscheid auf den Weg: @berlinwerbefrei und der @berlinautofreiVerkehrsentscheid Berlin setzen sich für eine lebenswertere Stadt ein. Ihre Ansätze? Mit weniger Autos und weniger Werbung für mehr Berlin!

Bis zum 8. Mai 2026 müssen jeweils 240.000 Unterschriften gesammelt werden, damit es im September 2026 mit der Abgeordnetenhauswahl zur Abstimmung über beide Volksbegehren kommt. Um das zu schaffen, braucht es viele engagierte Menschen.

Komm zu einem unserer gemeinsamen Infoabende mit Unterschriften-Sammeltraining, jeden 2. Montag im solid.berlin (Graefestraße 18): Wir erklären dir, wie du Menschen davon überzeugen kannst, für uns zu unterschreiben, statten dich mit Material aus und nebenbei lernst du nette Leute kennen 🫶

Nächste Termine:
09.02.
23.02.
09.03.
23.03.

👉 Leite diesen Post gern an Interessierte weiter!

#Verkehrsentscheid #Berlin #Werbefrei #Volksbegehren #Solid

**For the benefit of those who are less techy or may not know about the ways we can deal with personal identity data.**

Personal digital ID - a hot topic in the UK atm.

Many people and companies are working on systems to provide secure ways to hold our personal identity info. Some include wider profiles like our job, interests, hobbies etc. Some are OPEN SOURCE and part of a diverse ecosystem of data interoperability (you can use the same data POD (personal online data). Bluesky is active this landscape with their 'ATProto' personal data approach, and the Fediverse with the more versatile 'ActivityPub' user profile. There is also the WWW3 standards Solid project, and other Open Social Protocols (listed on the Solid project wikipedia page linked below).

Of course, just like IT sysadmins who provided website CMS at universities a decade ago, the UK govt thinks it needs walled garden private enterprise to partner with. They will spend probably ten times the money going down that route (just like universities did). This is old fashioned and not what other large national/territorial entities will be doing.

From the Solid wiki page"

>"Solid's central focus is to enable the discovery and sharing of information in a way that preserves privacy. A user stores personal data in "pods" (personal online data stores) hosted wherever the user desires. Applications that are authenticated by Solid are allowed to request data if the user has given the application permission. A user may distribute personal information among several pods; for example, different pods might contain personal profile data, contact information, financial information, health, travel plans, or other information. The user could then join an authenticated social-networking application by giving it permission to access the appropriate information in a specific pod. The user retains complete ownership and control of data in the user's pods: what data each pod contains, where each pod is stored, and which applications have permission to use the data."

These open source systems are robust and based on the idea that only you can own and control your data. Though the data may be held centrally on (for example civic servers or other server companies who provide a Slid POD) it cannot be accessed by them. Im researching into this a lot more in coming days :)

Links to read carefully if youre interested in what I'm talking about.

CAVEAT: Im not a tech expert at this so go easy if you'd like to correct any info here :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_(web_decentralization_project)

https://www.cmswire.com/digital-experience/how-to-set-up-solid-pods-a-data-ownership-guide/

https://solidproject.org/get_a_pod

https://www.projectliberty.io/dsnp/

#digitalid #openid #solid #atproto #activitypub #dsnp #academia #academicchatter

Tim Berners-Lee (@timblTim Berners-Lee) explains why he gave away the #WWW for free.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/28/why-i-gave-the-world-wide-web-away-for-free

"For the web to have everything on it, everyone had to be able to use it, and want to do so. This was already asking a lot. I couldn’t also ask that they pay for each search or upload they made. In order to succeed, therefore, it would have to be free. That’s why, in 1993, I convinced my #CERN managers to donate the intellectual property of the world wide web, putting it into the public domain. We gave the web away to everyone."

But he adds:

"Today, I look at my invention and I am forced to ask: is the web still free today? No, not all of it. We see a handful of large platforms harvesting users’ private data to share with commercial brokers or even repressive governments…Trading personal data for use certainly does not fit with my vision for a free web."

#PublicDomain #OpenInfrastructure #Solid #Web

@timblTim Berners-Lee I finally got my copy on friday. Came as a total surprise you mentioned me in the acknowledgements. I am honoured! It's a pleasure working with you and the community on the #Solid ecosystem.

@tastapodDaniel Terhorst-North inspired me with his #JoyfulCoding based on https://cupid.dev practices. Focus less on formal #SOLID principles. Have more fun.

This Joy of Coding notion led me to expand the concept to be #JoyfulCreation.

After all coding is social and countless people are involved in getting results that fulfills our collective needs.

This is what the future #SocialWeb will bring. #CommonsParticipation 💪

Joyful creation is where fediverse allows us to ✨ social code the social code together.

We're migrating Hackers' Pub to a pretty unconventional tech stack, and I'm honestly excited about it!

Thanks to my friend @xiniha, we're diving into #Solid, #SolidStart, #Pothos, #GraphQL, and #Relay. In a world dominated by Next.js and React, this feels refreshingly different. And yes, we're sticking with #Deno instead of Node.js too.

Some might call it contrarian, but I like to think of it as exploring what's possible beyond the mainstream. Sometimes the road less traveled leads to interesting places.

By the way, if you’re looking into decentralized tech where people are actually in control of their own data (as in who can use it, when and how), checkout #Solid https://solidproject.org There are a lot of interesting insights, especially for storing sensitive data. #OpenSocialWeb #ActivityPub #Fediverse

What I'd really like to see is BlueSky modifying their AT protocol to allow AT relays to treat ActivityPub servers as Personal Data Servers. Maybe by using aspects of the Solid protocol, as demonstrated by @activitypods?

https://activitypods.org/

No idea if this is technically viable, I'm just thinking out loud here. But just imagine unifying the efforts of AP, Solid and AT developer ...

#BlueSky #ATProto #PDS #ActivityPub #ActivityPods #Solid