Solid envisions a web that empowers individuals and communities to move towards an equitable, informed, and interconnected society. This group is for people who are putting that vision into practice by creating software that serves the needs of its users and is based on principles of data autonomy and interoperability.
To keep informed about Solid Practitioners:
- Online meetings are held at https://meet.jit.si/solid-practitioners on the first and third Thursday of each month at 14:00 UTC. See the meetings repo) for the upcoming schedule.
- Please join the discussion in the Solid Practitioners Matrix Chatroom.
- Please set yourself as a watcher of the Solid Practitioners Repo and look for PRs to the
practitioners/meetings/andpractitioners/announcements/folders to keep informed of upcoming meetings and events.
The target audience of this group is people actively working on projects aimed at specific real-world products using Solid, especially products which promote social benefit. Everyone interested in Solid, regardless of involvement in a project or technical skill level, is encouraged to participate while recognizing that the discussions will be focused on challenges of member projects, not generalized developer support, although the two will certainly overlap in many cases.
New Solid developers will be better served by the Getting Started Group whose purpose is to onboard developers. Those interested in theory and in building the standards will be better served by the W3C Solid Community Group whose purpose is creating and editing specifications and gathering implementer feedback. Data-modules are an example of something that should have two homes — the Data-Modules Group works top down to develop generalized modules for accessing data. Practitioners work from the bottom-up, developing data-modules specific to the domains being targeted by our member projects.
The Practitioners group will strive to collaborate with other groups through the Solid Team, promoting an ecosystem with niches appropriate for different communities of interest that work together towards a common larger goal.
The focus will be on supporting active projects working on specific products and on "getting things done with what exists" rather than on theoretical issues or general developer support. Our approach will be from the bottom up — a community or group of users has a need; an individual or team of developers works in conjunction with that community to produce a product that addresses the need; the individual or team participates in Solid Practitioners and can then network and discuss with similar projects the technical and social barriers they face.
In addition to our main focus — providing working sessions on challenges faced by member projects — we will focus on networking between member projects; for example, collaborating on the development of ontologies or a common codebase needed by several member projects. In addition to technical issues, the group's discussion may include the social impact of member projects, issues related to publicizing those projects, and the adoption of those projects by public agencies and other organizations. We anticipate working groups to help highlight and publicize our member projects and success stories and to document best practices discovered by the group or individual projects.
We anticipate both regular and special meetings. Regular meetings will be structured to include
- brief time for administrative details
- brief check-in from all with emphasis on current status and pressing issues of projects
- extra time for new project check-ins, possibly including demos or walk-throughs
- a detailed discussion of the topics brought up by member projects, prioritizing those that can be solved quickly
- reports from working groups
- other issues not related to a specific member project
Special meetings can be proposed by any participant and can focus on group knowledge-sharing on specific topics likely to be of interest to members. We can invite guests for knowledge-transfer as needed. Special meetings can also be called to focus on a specific project — we can use the hour to crowd-source the project's issues among ourselves.
Working groups can be proposed by any participant. If you need something solved that needs more than a few minutes in a meeting, such as localization, and so does someone from another project, form a working group, invite all, collaborate on whatever time frame you want, and report back to the main group on your progress and challenges.
Members are strongly encouraged to work on each other's projects. If you see a part you can help with, jump in! If you need help, ask!
All meetings and public forums related to Solid Practitioners are governed generally by the W3C Positive Work Environment and specifically by the Solid Code of Conduct. If you encounter behavior that makes you feel un-included, please report it!
It is our hope that we can foster a sense of ourselves as a welcoming and diverse community collaborating on making the web and the world we want.