ACL’s versus OCAP
Today I joined the ActivityPub Conference BoF session about Spritely and asked Christopher about “ACL vs. Ocaps” specifically wrt Solid. He thinks the choice for ACL is a bad move on Solid’s part, and gave an elaborate explanation.
It boiled down to that there are 2 vulnerabilities in ACL’s and a couple of ‘non-niceties’. Most important wrt the latter is enormous complexity, especially in decentralized and distributed environments.
I’ll just name the vulnerabilities here:
- Ambient authority
- Confused deputy problem
As resources that best explain the issues there are: ACL’s don’t (PDF) and Racets: Faceted Execution in Racket (video).
Lastly and an important aspect mentioned by Christopher were that “ACL’s are just not all that interesting” … as a technology for the future. In that regards Ocaps offer way more possibilities.
Whatever the opinions and viewpoints are, I think it would be really worthwhile if @timbl @RubenVerborgh @justin @megoth et al had a meeting with Christopher. Also, if the whole Fediverse decides to go the Ocap direction, then it would be a real missed chance if Solid wasn’t that attractive anymore given the ACL approach.
(Note: I am not in the know of any prior discussions that already took place, and what the nature of missed opportunity might be. I am just cross-communicating because I would love to see How Solid and ActivityPub complement each other best)