Hello @NoelDeMartin, @jacoscaz ,
Jacopo, thanks for your great work in the WebID CG!
I wear a few hats and it’s difficult to separate the arguments and pick the right one, but since this conversation morphed from “I’m somewhat worried” to an invitation for “Inrupt to join this conversation” I will reply as an Inrupt employee.
And there isn’t much to say, Jacopo explained things very well. I would add the following:
- Not only Inrupt open sourced the walled code (mobile apps for Android and iOS), but we are in the process of moving its governance to the OpenWallet Foundation. We hope OWF will accept it and, as you can see, everybody is invited to collaborate.
- The Wallet uses a different API indeed, but data ends up in a Solid Pod, from where it can be shared with any Solid App. This is idiomatic for Solid and an good example of how a Solid app could/should be implemented. It’s just one that has wide applicability.
- The API is public and documented, anybody can implement it any way they want, including using Mongo. Not what we would recommend, but possible. Yes, it’s not part of the Solid specs currently, but it may become a client-client protocol. Time will tell.
- Related to 3. above, other Solid Server implementations may decide to support it. I am not sure about CSS, but I have high hopes for activitypods, which is currently the most actively developed open source Solid project. I encourage the community to engage and help with that project. I hope graphmetrix will consider that too, I don’t know how well it aligns with their business needs, but they also did some extremely interesting innovation around Solid. They are also bound by the economic constrains @jacoscaz very well pointed out, and I’d be more than happy to work with them on that if they see it as an opportunity.
- Related to 3. and 4. above, adoption of the Wallet, and support for the API in other projects will, we anticipate and work hard towards it, lead to more Solid hosting providers, more Pods, more adoption, more interoperability.
- I don’t think there’s anything that should give the community and @NoelDeMartin reasons for concern. Inrupt was very open and consistent in advancing Solid. The Web Linked Storage WG is currently formed to finalize the Solid specification after one year delay due, for the most part, to push back from a particular corner of the Solid community. We knew these are the realities of community work, we were determined to continue to push for Solid, and it happened. There will be more roadblocks down the road and Inrupt is determined to do everything in their power to continue to advance the idea of Solid and Web 3.0. TimBL’s and Inrupt’s message were always consistent.
So, if anything, I see reasons to be inspired by the new developments and continue to contribute. @NoelDeMartin, your Solid apps are some of the best, and you criticized the wallet API. I would highly encourage you to look in more detail at the API and make your critiques more concrete, bring them back here and improve the wallet API in the context of Solid, because that’s what we’re all trying to achieve.
The invitation to use and comment on the wallet API is actually not just for Noel, but everybody in the community. Much appreciated.