Solid, Local-First, and The Ultimate Bookkeeping System

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all hosted software applications would store user data in a single place under a user's control. In the Solid project, we experiment with Personal Online Datastores that act as a pivot for data portability: service A stores your data in your pod, service B retrieves your data from your pod.

Now combine this vision with the Local-First vision, where data is first stored locally on your device, and then (collaboratively) synchronised with other computers across the network - resolving any edit conflicts through CRDT technology. Data flows from and to your device automatically. Any differences in data model are translated on the fly using technology like the Cambria project.

What this gives is an internet where data is 'liquid'; instead of each computer having its own bookkeeping, all relevant data stores are synchronised with each other, into one virtualised see of liquid data: The Ultimate Bookkeeping System ("TUBS").

This lighting talk will briefly summarise 3 years of open source research&development between Federated Bookkeeping and the Solid project.