In order to write a simple and clear text I cut all words such “I think” or “in my opinion” etc… but everything there is based on my personal impression and need to be reviewed and improved by people having a better knowledge of the Solid environment than mine.
I browsed Solid resources and the forum and I had the feeling Solid project is
Unix/geek/web
as its target is
Smartphones/millennials/apps.
Social network are mainly accessed by smartphones, same thing for biologic and géolocalisation data, all this is managed by applications used by people who had their first smartphone when 10-12 years old and always used them in an instinctive way without any effort.
I know Solid can be accessed by a REST API called by any application and smartphones can access web applications too.
But I am talking about cultures: If you want to seduce a market you must think as the market, talk as the market, provide things the market wants. And currently I see nothing of this kind in Solid server litterature and products.
Another point: It seems it is expected applications will be created from scratch specifically for Solid. But we must keep in mind Solid is only the persistence layer of applications whose most important costs and valuable parts from the editors points of view are the business and presentation layers. And none will take the risk to use Solid as long it is not recognized as a reliable repository. So being humble we should only expect in the first time some applications propose Solid as one of the possible options for cloud storage. And nothing more.
Combining all this I think there is a work area for a team whose project could be the promotion of Solid in the smartphone world. Its roadmap in an Agile way could be:
1.a If not yet done : Test Solid server. Can it manage in a secure and efficiently way up to 5.000 files for a total of 50 gb, is there a disaster recovery scenario, what kind of multi-server architecture etc… Only test CRUD functions, sharing and linked data related functions not tested for now.
1.b Simultaneously identify and may be adapt good Java/Kotlin/Swift clients that should help interfacing Android/iOS applications to Solid REST API, including friendly documentation. Create the “Hello Solid” first Android/iOS application.
2 Find, convince and help an existing applications editor to add Solid as cloud storage option to its applications. I know an editor who should be interested for its file manager and gallery applications but many other exist. Clearly speaking: Google Photos and Google Drive/Dropbox/OneDrive are our targets.
3. Make buzz around those applications, find other candidates, help them, create the basis of a Solid environment, Solid as a privacy respectful cloud storage, nothing more.
4 Define a roadmap to test and deliver sharing functions.
5. Define a roadmap to test and deliver linked data related functions.
So if all of this is not stupid and there is volunteers let’s discuss about the project.
P.S. I see the Tiddly wiki save content post as of yesterday, same idea in the same time …