VC WG Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-09-29

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: David Chadwick, Brent Zundel, Ivan Herman, Charles Lehner, Ted Thibodeau Jr., Wayne Chang, Manu Sporny, Ryan Grant, Dave Longley, Michael Herman, Juan Caballero

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair: Wayne Chang

Scribe(s): Manu Sporny, Dave Longley

Content:

Wayne Chang: any updates or changes to the agenda?
… Any new introductions? Seems we all know each other here.

Michael Herman: Hello, Michael Herman here, CCG participant and WG Invited Expert, I will be attending these calls more regularly.

Wayne Chang: There are a number of PRs under 14 day merge, we can merge

1. PR Review

Wayne Chang: It might be good to sort by least recently updated.

Wayne Chang: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-asc

Wayne Chang: There are 11 total, we can go from least recently updated and go forward. I’ll share ink to view that I’m seeing.
… All defer v2, we can skip them.
… Lets talk about PR 814, there are changes requested here.

1.1. Added intended audience, purpose, goals/non-goals (pr vc-data-model#814)

See github pull request #814.

Wayne Chang: Michael, can you give us a summary?

Michael Herman: I started a process there, good feedback, responded to some of that feedback. I’ve incorporated a lot of feedback into local copy, busy w/ other things, can respond to comments that are there.

Manu Sporny: I was waiting for those changes to come in to do a re-review because there was quite a bit of discussion between Michael and Dave.
… I am concerned about the size of the PR. I agree with some of the content at the beginning but then it gets repetitive and then it gets into a lot of things I have concerns. It may look like we’re close here but I haven’t done a review and have a lot of concerns, I don’t want people to be surprised. My preference would be for this to be dealt with small bite sized PRs.
… If we are going to deal with this as a fairly large PRs, I think there will be a lot more input in it.

Michael Herman: I accept that and it’s all interconnected. I think this is also text that would be in the guide I’m working on. I apologize for the time it’s been taking.
… I think that it’s good that it’s one piece, this is the kind of text that I expect being in the guide. Apologies for the timing, live on a farm an sometimes can’t get back to doing the things I want to do.

Wayne Chang: That it might have another home might also help reduce the size of the text here.
… Next PR is by DavidC

1.2. Removing proofs from examples (pr vc-data-model#817)

See github pull request #817.

David Chadwick: This is all in the issue request… basically, when we rolled the standard initially, every VC would have a proof property, very late in the day that JWT was specified, discussion in the group. Manu argued that proof should be removed for JWT, I argued that it should have some content. Manu’s argument was accepted. Regardless of proof mechanism, you start off w/ a credential, you turn it into a VC, they should be identical irrespective of proof mechanism you use.
… We have the text to confirm that, what we don’t have is the equivalent in the examples, they still contain a proof, confuses the reader. This proposal is that proofs are removed from examples except where proof property is described.
… Manu has disagreed strongly with that.

Manu Sporny: My position hasn’t changed, strong objection to removing all the proof stuff in the spec. I do agree with David and the basic framing of what we’d like to do. But mass-deleting every instance of proof I think would potentially send the wrong message. It’s a big change for a v1.1 spec too. I’d like more people involved in what’s the best way to do it.
… The size of the PR is big as well because it’s across the whole spec. I’d like more people than just David and me providing input.
… And a smaller PR. I think we should talk about the best way to approach this. There are people like Orie going “The JWT stuff was a complete mistake and we should nuke it off the face of the planet” but he’s not on the call to make that argument and I don’t agree with it anyway.

Michael Herman: There is a related set of global example changes re: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/issues/815#issuecomment-930273229

David Chadwick: While the number of lines that are changed are significant, the changes are all absolutely identical, not a technically difficult change to comprehend, once you understand one of them, you understand all of them.

Michael Herman: So, I’m going to link in issue 815, in addition to JSON-LD, having non-LD examples as well, this is going to result in broad changes, auxillary example for all JSON-LD examples.

Michael Herman: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/issues/815#issuecomment-930273229

Dave Longley: Something, IIRC, someone was going to look into using the tabs approach for examples, so this PR would become “add tabbed examples”, adding JWT as additional examples.

Manu Sporny: Yes, agree with Dave that that is probably the right approach. I’m objecting to the construction of the PR, not the idea behind it. Other specs have dealt with this issue by providing tabbed examples. The right approach is probably 1 tab with the credential itself, 1 with the LD proof VC, and 1 with the JWT VC. Then people can switch between the tabs and examples and see what everything looks like.
… I think that approach can get consensus and the right thing to do is to raise that PR instead of committing this one.

Michael Herman: I will volunteer to code up a PR for the first set of tabs …I will add the plain old JSON tab

David Chadwick: I think that is an excellent suggestion, the only issue that i have is that I’m not technically competent enough with the software to do the tabbing
… I think that’s an excellent suggestion. The only issue I have is that I’m not technically competent enough with the software and storage to know how to do the tabbing. Whilst I’d be happy to do it, I have no technical ability to do it.

Michael Herman: Then adding incremental tabs should be more straight forward

Wayne Chang: Ok, that can be done

Charles Lehner: I like tabbed idea as well, have proof object that refers to have JWT, has that been discussed.

Ivan Herman: On the practical side, the JSON-LD spec has such an example, so that may be a distilled mechanism there.

Michael Herman: Who has a link to a tangible example of tab HTML coding?

Michael Herman: I’m technically capable.

Michael Herman: In the source code (or whereever) for the Recommendation document?

Dave Longley: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld11/#example-11-term-expansion-from-context-definition <– an example

Brent Zundel: link to example source using tabs: https://github.com/w3c/json-ld-syntax/blob/5276cc2cde38f491fe3a2f1c162cf0a1b3b5e82b/index.html#L782

Manu Sporny: I’m happy to open a PR with the tabbed approach, but we should be aware that we may be reopening a can of worms and a whole discussion about the various types of proofs and so on.

Michael Herman: My suggestion, following on to what Manu said, we need a small number of canonical examples in the spec… JSON, JSON-LD, and some others.
… When I was doing Guide/Primer, we could start getting into different varieties, create community notes on other representations, keep it to 2-4 and not 7, it’ll give the reader a rounded view of parameters. For at least v1.1, we should be able to agree on a small group of 3-4

David Chadwick: I think it’ll be less than 3-4, we really only have JSON-LD and JWT, I don’t think we have ZKP, I think we’d only have two tabs now.
… Further tabs will come later down the line.

Wayne Chang: Sounds like we’re all agreed that way to go is tabbed approach.
… Are there any objections to that?
… No objections.

Michael Herman: How do we decide on the short list?

Wayne Chang: The spec as is says you can use external proofs or embedded…

Michael Herman: Hoping there would be a plain ‘ol JSON example.

Wayne Chang: As DavidC noted in the PR, there is such a credential definition … perhaps that is an example that can be listed.

Michael Herman: Can we make a proposal now that plain ‘ol JSON is one, JSON-LD is another, third is JWT.

Wayne Chang: I think that sounds like a good path, don’t need to vote on it.
… Ok, looks like no dissenters, let’s see if we can provide that PR separately.

Dave Longley: i would say credential + ld proof VC + JWT VC is a good approach (if that’s what is being said)

Wayne Chang: +1

Manu Sporny: agree

Michael Herman: Offline, I will connect with David Chadick and Manu in terms of execution on the tabs

1.3. address inconsistencies in date-time strings (pr vc-data-model#822)

See github pull request #822.

Wayne Chang: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pull/822

Manu Sporny: I think this has received approval.

David Chadwick: Is this a substantive change to v1.2

Wayne Chang: I’ll ask Kyle.

Manu Sporny: It is a substantive change.
… It has to go to v1.2

Wayne Chang: Ok, we don’t need another review period, content is fine, just need to retarget to v1.2

1.4. clarification of schema property (pr vc-data-model#816)

See github pull request #816.

Wayne Chang: On issue 816, clarification of schema roperty, 3/4 approvals, manu requested changes, but seems like they’ve been addressed, is that correct?

Manu Sporny: If that was done, we’re good to go.
… Yup, that’s done, let me just approve, we’re good.

Wayne Chang: Ok, squashing and merging.
… do we mean to merge into v1.1?
… Can I change this so it merges to v1.1?

David Chadwick: Yes, please.

Wayne Chang: Seems like they’re conflicts, we’ll have to fix those.
… Just README and diagrams are conflicting, this is more of a technical git issue, I can help w/ that.
… Any other comments on this PR

1.5. Use URI id for credentialStatus and refreshService (pr vc-data-model#819)

See github pull request #819.

Wayne Chang: One more PR review… This one by cel.
… this looks like it’s good to go, needs to be retargeted to v1.2?

Manu Sporny: yes

Charles Lehner: yes

Wayne Chang: Looks like there is no v1.2 branch, we’ll resolve out of band.

2. issues

Wayne Chang: We need to move on to issues.
… We have 4 issues that haven’t been triaged. We can attempt to triage all 4.

Wayne Chang: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/issues?q=is%3Aopen+-label%3A%22substantive+change+v1.2%22+sort%3Aupdated-asc+-label%3Av1.1+-label%3Adefer-v2

Wayne Chang: We will address v1.1 issues after that

Brent Zundel: The categories that we can triage into are editorial bug fixes or defer, we’re out of runway to do any substantive bug fixes at this point.

Wayne Chang: Yes, we’re in maintenance mode and running out of time to make bigger changes.

2.1. “bound”/”binding” terminology is a significantly stronger relationship than is actually present between VCs and their Subjects or Holders (issue vc-data-model#821)

See github issue #821.

Wayne Chang: Can you give us context TallTed?

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: Binding is a much stronger relationship than any of the relationships that we’ve been discussing… we can associate, but bind is a bit too strong.
… I haven’t done anything yet, just the terminology is bad.

Dave Longley: I agree with Ted, this comment was on a PR that was talking about binding language, might not have “binding” language in the spec. We should consider being careful with this language and avoid “binding” terminology because it’s too strong.

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: I thought binding language wasn’t in v1.0, but it is in another PR?

Wayne Chang: The PR where it was first brought up was targeting v1.1, so we might need to resolve this.

Dave Longley: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pull/818 did not introduce “binding” … is there another PR?

Wayne Chang: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pull/818#discussion_r707644135

Brent Zundel: 818 doesn’t introduce binding language, there are some language that raised questions for Ted. My response brought up the whole binding language and that turned into “how much do we want to talk about the holder and how they’re connected to the credentials” etc.
… I don’t think there are changes that need to be made to v1.0, v1.1, or v1.2 to correct any language that exists in the spec, let’s refine language moving forward, can be done substantively or editorially.

Wayne Chang: An important distinction that emerged from discussion, it’s not within the literal text, doesn’t need to be fully resolved. Anyone have a recommended next step?

Brent Zundel: One possible next step, this issue serving as a place where the discussion can occur for how we want to refer to holders in the spec. Do we want to think about, suggestion in some of the community, normatively say something? This is a place where those conversations can happen. Not really a v1.1 or v1.2 issue.
… depends on where people think a solution should go?

Wayne Chang: Could be clarification

Manu Sporny: My suggestion is that we defer to v2. Primarily because this feels like a broader discussion, like a spec philosophy discussion. It’s a good, broad discussion to have and therefore doesn’t seem appropriate for v1.1 or v1.2.

Brent Zundel: +1 on defer to V2. Need to have the conversation, and the broader the group the better.

David Chadwick: +1 to manu

Manu Sporny: There are many people that have opinions about how holder association or “binding” should be done. I think we need a section in the spec about that, it can’t be addressed with a few sentences.

Wayne Chang: I’m ok with that, any objections to defer to v2? Looks like there is support to deferring to v2.

2.2. [PRINCIPLED OBJECTION] The VC data model specification 1.0 is not implementable in the ways it appears to be intended based on the text of the current specification document (issue vc-data-model#797)

See github issue #797.

Wayne Chang: We have a principled objection in 797, there has been discussion and constructive evolution since then, where do we stand with this issue?

Michael Herman: Is this the one about the voting and the naming?

Wayne Chang: This is the objection about VC Data Model not implementable.

Michael Herman: Yes, that is resolved via the Guide, as soon as that’s approved this will be closed. The VC Guide.

Wayne Chang: VC Guide pending proposal in CCG.
… Just as a word of caution, principled objections are taken extremely seriously, principled objections need to be considered …

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: Point of order, principled objections happen to CG documents, which are not REC track.

Wayne Chang: It is unclear where this fits into the process of WG, VC Data Model is already published.

Michael Herman: I’ll follow up with wayne offline, help me understand where we are so we can get this cleaned up.

Brent Zundel: I like the idea of the VC Guide, if the primary purpose of this issue is to track that work, its strange to have an item in the VCWG that tracks a CCG issue.
… If there are additional objections that need to be resolved, we should identify what needs to happen in VCWG to see what happens.

Dave Longley: +1 for closing this issue because the resolution is to do work elsewhere, no changes here.

Brent Zundel: If it’s a tracking issue, we should close. Otherwise, maybe keep it open.

David Chadwick: This came up on CCG call yesterday, Michael needs to join CCG meeting and present, they’re waiting for you to approve the work item Michael.

Ryan Grant: +1

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: I think that the reason this turned into a CCG work item was because Michael was not in the WG at the time and is now an invited expert. Since this has the same impact as a Note, perhaps work item should transfer back to WG, not going to change its impact in any way, cleans up what is, at present, a scrambled mess.

Michael Herman: It’s really simpler than all of this, the original thing was this issue and the solution was “someplace else”. The issue isn’t to track the work item, the VC Guide, it’ll address the concern, as soon as that’s approved, this issue will be closed.
… One is not linked to the other other than issue and solution.
… Where does the creation of the guide, jurisdiction, I don’t care, I’m just writing the guide.

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: Problems there include the IP agreement that apply to things, this is a weird situation in W3C, interrelationship between VCWG and CCG, this particular issue is against this WGs output, so the solution needs to be in WG output.
… I think that was slapdash “How can we do this quickly.” and it wasn’t addressed.

Michael Herman: I’ll close the issue and we can have CCG work on it.

David Chadwick: +1

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: I’m not going to fight it, but it’s still more than a little strange

Brent Zundel: +1 to closing

Dave Longley: +1 to closing

Wayne Chang: I think TallTed’s suggestion is pretty great, we can just continue CCG process, open up work item there, hopefully chairs there will let it through, as soon as VCWG is interested, we can continue work in this group, address concerns here.

Michael Herman: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/issues/797#issuecomment-930308901 closed

2.3. Question: Using Refresh Service Property to update a credential when Credential Subject has a new field (issue vc-data-model#820)

See github issue #820.

Wayne Chang: I think we do have time for one more issue…

Manu Sporny: The question he’s asking is a bit difficult to parse so I took a perspective, don’t know if it’s right. When you use a refresh service, the issuer can do whatever they want to.
… The expectation that the holder/requester has is they have an expired/revoked VC and they hit the refresh service. The issuer could say “No, you can’t have another” or “here’s a new one with a new expiration date” or “here’s a new one and some contents have changed” or “here’s a whole new VC with a new credential schema” or “here’s something totally different”.
… All of those are valid, but none are standardized. Probably expanding on that is a v2 discussion. We’re having active discussions in the VC API meetings around how refresh works.
… In general, that’s where we are now, their question probably won’t be formally addressed until v2 work starts.

Wayne Chang: I think we can defer to v2 to have a discussion about it.
… Ok, we can defer to v2 so we can have a deeper discussion about it.

Dave Longley: +1 to defer to v2

Brent Zundel: +1

Wayne Chang: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Av1.1+sort%3Aupdated-asc

3. v1.1 issues

Wayne Chang: We didn’t get to any 1.1 issues, if anyone feels strongly that we should cover a v1.1 issue, we might need to do some of this next week. Any burning issues while we have a few minutes left?

David Chadwick: We can close 812, we just merged schema issue.

Manu Sporny: The question is, what happens if we don’t get to the v1.1 issues. My expectation is that we’ll defer to v1.2 or v2, that’s how issuing processing will go if we don’t get things in time for the current release we just push to the next one. Is that right?

Wayne Chang: Yes.

David Chadwick: I want to do PR for JWT, how do I make sure I don’t pull from wrong branch?

Wayne Chang: Just branch off of v1.1

Charles Lehner: I sent something to group about VC tool for verifying VCs.

David Chadwick: Can you do JWTs?

Charles Lehner: Yes, I think so.

Brent Zundel: was going to clarify issue processing, but can do that offline.