Sustainable web apps with m-ld

Our hypothesis in this project is that web app data securely stored in reactive, replicated Linked Data sets can make it possible for app developers to meet today's and tomorrow's feature expectations without the high costs and limitations of today's distributed data architectures. This foundational design principle combines ideas from the semantic web (machine-readable publishable interlinked data), personal data stores (user control of user data) and local-first software (collaboration without obligatory third parties).

We believe the high costs of web app development have gone hand-in-hand with unwanted side-effects like user lock-in, attention theft, and abdication of control over personal data. Our core principle, like the ideas behind them, is designed to expedite the development of more sustainable apps: those without dependencies on specific service providers, with user empowerment in terms of service and data portability, and with linking of data between apps – including apps developed against similar technologies having these principles, such as those of the Solid ecosystem.

We will produce a set of concrete software components which demonstrate that such an approach is practical, and indeed offers a great experience for app developers, making it simple to create collaborative applications over Linked Data resources with compelling, responsive user interfaces.