Unhosted web apps

[michielbdejong]

The Unhosted project is almost identical to the Solid project, and I myself was quite active in it during 2010-2015. It now still lives on around the remoteStorage community, in which 5apps more or less plays the role that Inrupt plays for Solid.

Things that Solid has but Unhosted does not:

• editable ACLs (for remoteStorage, the public/ folder is always public, the rest is always private.
• server-side search (right?) through SPARQL (remoteStorage only has a browsable file system tree with follow-your-nose folder indexes)
• an append-only inbox for every pod (in the unhosted web apps vision, remoteStorage is just for storage, and messaging is done through SocketHub, a project that’s maintained by the same developer community)

Things that Unhosted has but Solid does not:

• built-in access scopes for client-side OAuth (IIUC, a Solid user still gives an app like https://pheyvaer.github.io/solid-chess/ full root access to their pod?)
• A wiki of data modules that different apps can share with other apps, like “Contacts”, “Picture”, “Chess Games”, etc.

[michielbdejong]

Forgot to add, Unhosted has a specific focus on client-side in-browser javascript apps that connect to your storage (which I think is the holy grail of separating web apps from user data), and server-side apps that connect to your remoteStorage are also possible, but considered a bit of an edge case.

SOLID is more liberal there: client-side apps can also access your pod cross-origin, but it’s also popular to add them as “panes” of the data browser hosted on your data pod.

[happybeing]

@michielbdejong

SOLID is more liberal there: apps can be client-side, or server-side, or hosted on your data pod.

I’m not sure if this is the case Michel. I believe @timbl is keen to keep the server very simple, which is one of the reasons I like Solid. But maybe he, @RubenVerborgh, or Inrupt can clarify ‘Solid philosophy’ around this? Or maybe you have a reference yourself?

BTW, big fan of RS and unhosted here, you did a lot of awesome work there. Helped me clarify my aims a lot. Thank you

[pheyvaer]

I think you can have a service that runs on a server and interacts with a Solid POD, for example, a back up tool that backs up my data on my POD. But maybe then the word “app” would not be used in this context.

[michielbdejong]

Thanks for clarifying, removed the mention of server-side apps, but kept the remark about pod-hosted apps (panes).

[MitziLaszlo]

If you are interested in this conversation, perhaps you would be interested in joining the External Interop and Outreach Panel.