VC WG Telco — Minutes

Date: 2022-01-19

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Ivan Herman, Ted Thibodeau Jr., Charles Lehner, David Chadwick, Ryan Grant, Brent Zundel, Markus Sabadello, Wayne Chang, Michael Klein, Gregory Natran, Juan Caballero

Regrets: Manu Sporny

Guests:

Chair: Brent Zundel

Scribe(s): Wayne Chang, Charles Lehner

Content:

1. agenda review.

Brent Zundel: talk briefly about meetings in the future, look at the v1.1 editorial improvements + make resolution on set of those to fold into 1.1 sepc.
… whatever remaining time, look at the vcwg draft charter.
… questions/concerns?.

Ivan Herman: 2 things, voting period for v1.1 has closed, pulling the final results..
… 16 voters who are okay to publish as-is, 1 public comment (not an objection), link incoming.

Ivan Herman: See Google’s comments on 1.1.

Ivan Herman: and another backing up these comments and 1 more abstention..
… we must address these as a wg, as publishing 1.1 requires this.
… we have to plan for this..
… 2, microsoft has officially joined the wg, which is great.
… as part of the charter discussion, we can talk about the co-chairing?.

Brent Zundel: yes, that’s the plan.

2. Meetings moving forward.

Brent Zundel: meetings moving fwd, the goal of this wg is to publish corrections to the vc-data-model 1.0. we’re on track to publish 1.1 with those corrections and will continue to meet weekly until that happens.
… once we have addressed those concerns raised and settled on a set of additional editorial changes we want to make, we plan to stop meeting except as necessary to discuss anything to do with the draft charter.
… any questions around the meeting plan moving forward?.
… after addressing the comments made by google, we will consider this done except for hammering out the next draft charter.

3. Concerns about v1.1.

Ivan Herman: See Google’s comments on 1.1.

Brent Zundel: changes requested include one changing URL to URI could cause more confusion in interpretation of the vc-data model.
… another correction made was modifying a statement in the ZKP section to make them more compatible with actual implementations.
… those concerns are around how the looser set of restrictions could make it even more difficult to implement the spec.
… i understand many of us are seeing this for the first time, but welcome conversation.

Juan Caballero: question/refresher. it sounds to me like two of these would be addressed by adding a few non-normative explanatory sentences, and the third would be to add additional test vectors. is it too late to make those kinds of changes?.

Brent Zundel: not too late to make any non-normative changes, which include the test vectors.

David Chadwick: it seems to be that Correction 2 could be to do with DIDs, because DIDs aren’t included in URLs but they are in URIs. iirc, google objected to the DID spec moving forward, perhaps these are linked.

Brent Zundel: we’re not sure that’s why, that seems like speculation.

Charles Lehner: See relevant pull-request for Correction 2.

David Chadwick: number 3 is a bit odd, because there we’ve loosened normative statements, while you said we couldn’t tight them. would that violate the edit procedure?.

Brent Zundel: if we were to revert our changes to the version of 1.0, that could work.

David Chadwick: if you’re saying 1.0 didn’t allow us to do something and that’s clearly specified, that could help us with correction 3.

Charles Lehner: See Correction 3’s PR.

Ivan Herman: back to the URL/URI issue, i don’t think that’s the reason why they’ve added comments..
… it’s more of the fact that in a growing number of web specifications these days, the term URI has been dropped because the claim is in practice, no one uses that term, everyone uses URL and not URI.
… there has been a lot of confusion about these terms in the past decades, and newer Web standards tend to refer to WhatWG’s spec for URL.
… the URL spec by the WhatWG is not an easy read, but the way i understand it is that this URL spec actually syntactically speaking does include DIDs as well.
… the URL spec is not just for HTTP URLs, but we should confirm this.

Brent Zundel: See the change was made in response to this issue.

Ivan Herman: that’s probably where they’re coming from, benefit of the doubt, i don’t think it’s related to formal objection.

David Chadwick: a new IETF spec from OIDC group, proposing URI scheme based on JWT key hashes, and i’m proposing a similar one with JWKs.
… so we can see in the IETF, there are still people referring to things as URIs and not URLs.

Ivan Herman: See IETF JWT Key Hash URLS.

Ivan Herman: the confusion is still rampant.
… if that work is used in VCs, and the WhatWG spec would preclude using that work, then it’s potentially an argument to keep them as URIs.

David Chadwick: indeed it would be an argument.

Brent Zundel: See the relevant PR.

Brent Zundel: question for the group, should we raise an issue, point them to the issue/PR? or should we proceed with changes.

Ivan Herman: initiating a discussion via github sounds like the right and clean way to do it.

Brent Zundel: another possible solution is continuing v1.1 as-is, and work on addressing the conversation in the next working group as part of the scope.

Ivan Herman: let’s be friendly and constructive where possible.

Brent Zundel: i’ll make the issue to track this concern. anything else?.
… should we take any different action for the correction 3 around ZKPs?.
… the last one is the testing. it may be accurate that our test suite needs an update according to 1.1.

Wayne Chang: cel, would you have interest in working on improving the test suite?.

Charles Lehner: can look into it.
… can try to add some more test vectors for those combinations.

Brent Zundel: just to make sure the test suite reflects the most recent set of normative changes.

Ivan Herman: just looking at the very last paragraph, he emphasizes a process problem about how it’s difficult for a reader to find out where those changes come from.
… not a criticism at us, but at the process, but we can accommodate by adding refs to PRs and issues to add context for the changes.

4. v1.1 Editorial Improvements.

Brent Zundel: we’ll talk about the v1.1 editorial improvements, coming to a resolution on these hopefully.
… we have been as a group, since we started the conversation, we’ve also been working on a set of editorial changes, many already added to the v1.1 branch on github.
… there are a number of pull requests that are labeled v1.1 editorial and merge after 14 days..
… the gist of the proposal is that we will publish the editorial changes already incorporated in the v1.1 branch plus the v1.1 editorial merge-after-14-days PRs as the set of editorial changes we will make the to the v1.1 spec as soon as it is published.
… any questions/concerns?.

Ivan Herman: i just tried to exactly understand what you just said… Let’s suppose that we get an agreement with jeffrey on the comments that google had, that means 1.1 will incorporate those changes once and for all.
… then we can ask for editorial re-publication. do you mean when we request re-publication we will also include both changes in one?.

Brent Zundel: original intent was to have two publications, but would defer to experience.

Ivan Herman: i have an opinion but not very strong, it could be cleaner if we publish the voted-upon stuff without changes, then after that we do another editorial changes of the 1.1.
… we have to be careful right now not to merge any PRs..

Brent Zundel: the reason we separated the branches (doc in PR space voted on), and another branch with changes we want to make..

Ivan Herman: if that’s the properly organized in the repo, that’s fine.
… we shouldn’t change the version voted upon by any merge.

Brent Zundel: i’m drafting proposal language, if anyone has feedback, please jump on the queue.

David Chadwick: so this is a clarification question to ivan, are you saying it’s better to jump two small hurdles than one big one?.

Ivan Herman: yes.

David Chadwick: we publish what we have that has been voted on, then we can make some editorial changes..

Ivan Herman: i personally think that would be the more appropriate course of action. in the old days, after the proposed rec was accepted, the published rec had to be the same as what was voted on except for grammatical mistakes, etc..
… the new process is fuzzier, but it’s still a good practice to publish what people actually voted on. that’s why i prefer we take two steps.
… again, it’s a personal opinion, and not an official policy.

David Chadwick: sounds more cautious.

Brent Zundel: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aopen+label%3A%22v1.1+%28editorial%29%22+label%3A%22merge+after+14+days%22.

Wayne Chang: (Brent drafts a proposal text).

Brent Zundel: please check out these four PRs.

David Chadwick: now i’m a bit confused.
… curious about “additional editorial corrections”.

Ivan Herman: if you look at the sentence, we will indeed publish the 1.1 model.

David Chadwick: what does already merged mean?.

Ivan Herman: v1.1 branch…..

David Chadwick: oh v1.1 branch is not actual data model.

Brent Zundel: added a little bit to hopefully clarify.
… any further comments before we run the proposal?.

Proposed resolution: Following the publication of VC Data Model v1.1, we will publish a second set of additional editorial corrections comprising the changes already merged into the v1.1 branch (https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/tree/v1.1) plus the PRs currently labeled both “v1.1 (editorial)” and “merge after 14 days”. (Brent Zundel)

Ivan Herman: +1.

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: +1.

Brent Zundel: +1.

David Chadwick: +1.

Michael Klein: +1.

Charles Lehner: +1.

Wayne Chang: +1.

Gregory Natran: +1.

Ryan Grant: +1.

Juan Caballero: +1.

Resolution #1: _Following the publication of VC Data Model v1.1_, we will publish a second set of additional editorial corrections comprising the changes already merged into the v1.1 branch (https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/tree/v1.1) plus the PRs currently labeled both “v1.1 (editorial)” and “merge after 14 days”.

Charles Lehner: voting as orgs or individuals?.

Ivan Herman: usually individual vote unless otherwise specified.

Brent Zundel: thanks for that.
… any other comments on this topic before the final topic of the day?.

5. VCWG Draft Charter.

Brent Zundel: https://github.com/w3c/vc-wg-charter/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-asc.

Ivan Herman: See charter proposal.

Brent Zundel: jumping into our charter for the last 15m.

5.1. Multilingual support for selecting a image file (issue vc-wg-charter#38)

See github issue vc-wg-charter#38.

Brent Zundel: does anyone have anything more on this issue?.
… still looking for a PR from shigeya.

5.2. Add second chair information (pr vc-wg-charter#41)

See github pull request vc-wg-charter#41.

Brent Zundel: with that, we have two PRs to look at it. the first one is PR 41.
… proposal to add Kristina Yasuda from Microsoft as the next co-chair for the WG.

Wayne Chang: I want to speak in support of Kristina/Microsoft taking a chair position..
… With their interested in the VC spec, we can move towards production readiness and satisfying customers..
… it’s a balance to get different ecosystems conforming to a data model..
… Very impressive contributions, looking forward to it..

Brent Zundel: please add your checkmarks to the PR itself, if no more comments please move to the other PR.

5.3. re-tweaked cryptosuite deliverables (pr vc-wg-charter#40)

See github pull request vc-wg-charter#40.

Brent Zundel: final business for today, PR 40.
… significantly improves readability, any feedback on 40?.
… already approvals, if no objections, let’s merge 40 today.

Ivan Herman: i would merge 40, and leave 41 for now?.

Brent Zundel: sounds good.
… raised an issue to track the concerns, looking forward to the conversation.
… any conversation we can have before we meet next, will help that conversation to be productive. i invite you all to engage this week as your schedules permit.
… thanks everyone! we have done a significant amount of work.

6. new memnber intro.

Michael Klein: worked for the last years working on smart contracts, coming up with protocols for off-chain signing, great to meet you all.

Brent Zundel: see you next week!.

7. Resolutions