Verifiable Credentials Working Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2025-01-15

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Ivan Herman, Brent Zundel, Hiroyuki Sano, Dave Longley, Mandy Venables, Wesley Smith, Manu Sporny, Will Abramson, Kevin Dean, Michael Jones, David Chadwick, Dmitri Zagidulin, Przemek Praszczalek, Jennie Meier, Joe Andrieu, Benjamin Young, Phillip Long, Steve McCown, Ted Thibodeau Jr.

Regrets:

Guests:

Chair: Brent Zundel

Scribe(s): Will Abramson

Content:

Brent Zundel: Agenda today is, open PRs and at risk features for the data model, cids, status list and data integrity.
… any changes or additions?

Ivan Herman: The cr submission for the CID spec has started its official journey. The first opportunity for feedback is on friday.

1. VCDM - PRs and at-risk features.

Brent Zundel: https://github.com/w3c/vc-data-model/pulls.

1.1. Fix JsonSchema of the Verifiable Credential (pr vc-data-model#1581)

See github pull request vc-data-model#1581.

Brent Zundel: This is about fixing the JSON schema of the verifiable credential. Does what is described. Makes minor changes to the JSON schema.
… has three approvals. No objections. Should be uncontroversial.
… Please review.

1.2. Reword self-asserted VC in VP text to remove MUST. (pr vc-data-model#1580)

See github pull request vc-data-model#1580.

Brent Zundel: This rewords the self asserted VP test to remove the MUST. The test suite determined that this statement was untestable.
… This is a normative change that fixes a bug. Has lots of approval, expect it to be merged after review time passed.

Manu Sporny: process question for ivan, this has been determined unimplementable even though it is normative. Is this change going to be okay.

Ivan Herman: yep should be fine.
… I don’t think the normative label on the PR is justified. It isnt changing a feature it makes things more precicse.

Manu Sporny: I can change to editorial.

1.3. Finalize list of Editors, Authors, and Acknowledgements. (pr vc-data-model#1579)

See github pull request vc-data-model#1579.

Brent Zundel: This PR updates the authors and editors list based on how folks have contributed the the spec.
… other than minor fixes from TallTed, the PR is straightforward. please get reviews in.

Ivan Herman: Never know what the right thing to do for former editors and authors and their affiliations.
… What is the right direction.

Brent Zundel: For former editors, it makes sense to me to keep affiliation when they were editors.

Manu Sporny: I agree with that.
… For VCDM I was on the fence around the authors. There are people who have contributed a lot to the conversation and we acknowledge that. But wondering if they should be authors.
… What about where content has been removed.
… Would appreciate the thoughts of the group on this.

Michael Jones: I am surprised to see a proposal to remove myself as an editor. I am going to make a change request to the current PR to add me back in.

Brent Zundel: Chair hat off, the habit of maintaining a list of former authors and editors to the spec isnt something I think we need to do. I don’t mind if my name goes.

Manu Sporny: On selfissued taking offence to the suggested changes. We try to make this data driven. selfissued did not contribute as much as others on the basis of the data.
… You are given acknowledgments in that section.
… I think this should be a data driven effort, to reward those who have submitted PRs and engaged in the commentary etc.

Michael Jones: I understand desire to be data driven. But this doesn’t include in the important ways that people contribute. Including attending calls and TPAC to contribute to the discussion etc.
… I feel I have behaved as an editor making contributions, that are not always in github. This is the false narrative. Github contributions are not the only way to contribute to the spec.

Manu Sporny: one last thing. The job of an editor is to edit. To raise PRs. To modify the document. To make changes to the document. The other types of contributions are valid, they are made as working group participants.
… Acknowledgements are made.
… I strongly disagree with the idea that if an editor just shows up to calls, while not contributing to the document, then they should not be an editor. These things are earned.

Michael Jones: I want an apology.

Brent Zundel: not going to come to a conclusion on this call. lets have a conversation privately with selfissued and manu.

Manu Sporny: I would like this to be a public discussion.

Brent Zundel: spending 5 more minutes on this.

David Chadwick: In my own case, not objecting to being listed an author. But the count of PRs for myself is less than it could have been as manu did some of my PRs.

Dave Longley: Just want to make the point that the group agreed to follow this data driven process to decide whose name would be on the spec as authors and editors. I think it is unfair to put the burden of that onto manu.
… He is just executing what the group wants.
… We are talking about names in the editor section of the spec, this is about editing.

Brent Zundel: that matches my recollection.

Michael Jones: That does not match my recollection to sign up to be an editor.
… I have been doing some of this largely on my own time. I consider myself a consistent intellectual leader in this spec.
… This doesnt always result in PRs.
… Feel this is unfair to have assumed to be an editor for all this time, then as we are approaching the finish line to change this.

Brent Zundel: making a suggestion. manu, selfissued and gabe regularly attended the editor call for an hour each week. Has this time commitment been taken into account.

Manu Sporny: No, it hasn’t been taken into account.

Brent Zundel: wondeirng if we can account for this time. The editor call is work.

Manu Sporny: I don’t have an opiniob on this, the group needs to figure this out.

Michael Jones: thanks for raising that point brent. I agree it was a substantial time commitment to be on the editor calls. I engaged in these calls.
… Maybe the resolution to this is to put the working group on record that those who participate in the group should be listed as editors.

Ivan Herman: for the last issue it is more complicated. There are many documents that we are editing. The editors call covers all of them, this discussion is just the VCDM.
… In this case selfissued is already issued for other documents produced by this group.

Dave Longley: +1 to run a poll on whether joining editor calls is sufficient to be on the editor list for a specification.

Ivan Herman: Whats the judgement on the rule around adding authors.
… For my understanding selfissued could perhaps be listed as an author.

Dave Longley: +1 that intellectual contributions to the specification and not direct typing into the spec sounds more like authorship than editing.

Benjamin Young: This is just for the VCDM. The editors call is general. selfissued is still and editor on other documents where his editorial contributions have been recognised.

Dave Longley: +1 to bigbluehat that the “edits” were made in other specs and the editorship reflects that.

Benjamin Young: I don’t see this as a personal affront. Just edits where not made to the VCDM, so in that sense selfissued would not be listed as an editor but still be acknowledged.

Michael Jones: yes, editors call was a union of editors of all the specs. I went to that assuming that those listed as editors would remain so.
… My time is not free, yet I gave my time to work on the VCDM spec.
… willing to clarify resolution to say that editors that participated in calls will remain listed as editor to those specs.

Dave Longley: +1 to Joe – much time and money have been spent by many individuals and companies.

Joe Andrieu: I dont find the arguments that those who commited personal time and wealth should be an editor or author. An editor in my opinion should be editing. They should be actually making edits to the spec.

Manu Sporny: Answering around what makes an author. Historically it has been significant contributions to the specifications that resulted in new sections to the document.
… e.g. brentz and his contributions around the ZKP section.
… significant intellectual contributions to the specification, e.g. foundational concepts integrated into the specifcation.
… Another example is DavidC in the 1.0 spec added a section about subject vs holder.
… as for everyone getting credit. Please look at the PR, everyone who contributed to the spec is getting acknowledgements.

David Chadwick: question to manu, in the PRs on the commits person A raises the PR. Person B makes a lot of comments. Who gets the credit?

Manu Sporny: No person B gets the credit. When person B makes a change suggestion, we make separate commits that make them get the credit for it.
… That is how TallTed ended up at the top of the list, he regularly provides suggestions to text.
… again linecount does not mean everything. But we also take into account comments etc. To get a good sense of contributions to the spec.

Proposed resolution: those listed as editors on the specifications who attended the weekly editors call will be listed as editors. (Brent Zundel)

Michael Jones: +1.

Dave Longley: -1 (attending a weekly editor call is insufficient to be listed as an editor, significantly more work is required to actually edit the documents themselves for them to become specs, which is the job of an editor).

Joe Andrieu: -1 for documents they didn’t edit.

Proposed resolution: those previously listed as editors on the specifications who attended the weekly editors call will be listed as editors. (Brent Zundel)

Proposed resolution: those already listed as editors on the specifications who attended the weekly editors call will continue to be listed as editors. (Brent Zundel)

Manu Sporny: -1 if they didn’t do measurable changes/edits to the documents the were editor’s for.

Michael Jones: +1.

David Chadwick: 0.

Brent Zundel: +1.

Benjamin Young: -1 editing should result in edits.

Joe Andrieu: -1.

Will Abramson: -1.

Ivan Herman: 0.

Dave Longley: -1 (attending a weekly editor call is insufficient to be listed as an editor, significantly more work is required to actually edit the documents themselves for them to become specs, which is the job of an editor; if they did this then no issue).

Steve McCown: 0.

Hiroyuki Sano: 0.

Jennie Meier: -1.

Phillip Long: -1.

Brent Zundel: not leading to resolution.
… spending the remaining time looking at the other prs.

1.4. Update “refreshService” example to VCDM2.0 (pr vc-data-model#1566)

See github pull request vc-data-model#1566.

Brent Zundel: This PR update refreshService.

Manu Sporny: this was initially to address using real examples in the specification.
… This was done mostly accept for refreshService.
… We dont have a v2.0 example.
… I think there is pushback to using an 2.0 example.

1.5. Making Abstract abstract, instead of introduction (pr vc-data-model#1560)

See github pull request vc-data-model#1560.

Brent Zundel: this PR is about making the abstract abstract.

Manu Sporny: TallTed I think you objected because the content matched the introduction.
… I think I objected to your proposed text because it was too wordy. It would be good to make an attempt at it.
… I think the current PR is not going to go it. I marked it pending close.

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: As I put on the PR. The abstract that chatgpt helped me make is an abstract of the entire document.
… The current abstract is introductory. And is not an abstract.
… I don’t see value having the current paragraph as an abstract.
… I suggest dropping it an not having an abstract.

Brent Zundel: One path would be to modify it to remove the paragraph. The other path would be to make it more concise.

Manu Sporny: I dont think it improves the document in its current shape.
… I dont think we can delete the abstract, because respec complains.
… I would be fine with keeping the abstract and reworking the introduction spec.
… Typically the W3C abstracts dont follow the academic abstract pattern.
… They aim to give folks a paragraph concise understanding of the spec.
… Suggest we try to keep reworking it until it is acceptable.
… I will make another attempt.

Ivan Herman: dropping the abstract is not an option due to the publishing rules.

Brent Zundel: Those are the PRs in the VCDM.
… manu do you have the set of at risk sections.

Manu Sporny: bigbluehat might have those, I dont think we have any more.

Benjamin Young: Yep, not in the VCDM.
… bitstring has a few things.

2. Controlled Identifiers.

Brent Zundel: https://github.com/w3c/controller-document/pulls.

Brent Zundel: moving to controlled identifiers.

2.1. Adjust specification title to Controlled Identifiers. (pr cid#144)

See github pull request cid#144.

Brent Zundel: This pr attempts to adjust the title of the document, to call is controlled identifiers and drop the document following the DID spec.
… At the time everyone was happy with this.
… selfissued who wasnt on the call has since raised an objection.

Dave Longley: +1 to Ivan.

Ivan Herman: I think selfissued is right, we should have passed a resolution. However this is a minor change. I would prefer to make the change.

Manu Sporny: I agree with ivan, lets run a resolution for this change.

David Chadwick: +1.

Michael Jones: We argued over this already. We eventually got to something with consensus and made that change.
… Then at the last minute we are changing our minds again.
… furthermore, linguistically controlled identifier document is not suprisingly different from controller document.
… wheras controlled identifiers and controller document are not that closely linked.
… people in the community know the work as controller document.
… not in favor of changing our mind in the last minute.

Brent Zundel: First, apologies for not running a proposal last week. We should have.
… While I see the sense in unifying CIDs with DIDs.
… I also see that maybe controlled identifier documents is talking about the format of the document that is returned when you acces a controlled identifier.
… I do not have a strong opinion either way.
… Will run the proposal from dlongley.

Proposed resolution: Make the title in the controlled identifiers document specification “Controlled Identifiers (CIDs) v1.0”. (Brent Zundel)

Brent Zundel: 0.

Manu Sporny: +1.

Dave Longley: +1.

David Chadwick: just to say that everything we produce is a spefication and a document. We could add document to all our specs.

Ivan Herman: +1.

Michael Jones: -1.

Joe Andrieu: +1.

Steve McCown: +1.

David Chadwick: +1.

Jennie Meier: +1.

Will Abramson: +1.

Benjamin Young: +1.

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: +1.

Hiroyuki Sano: +1.

Phillip Long: +1.

Brent Zundel: selfissued noting you are the only one objecting, would you formally object if this was resolved over your objections.

Michael Jones: no I would not, however belive this is a bad idea and was rushed at the last minute.

Resolution #1: Make the title in the controlled identifiers document specification “Controlled Identifiers (CIDs) v1.0”.

Ivan Herman: Don’t know when the PR went in, if the one week is not over then I would ask for this to be merged as quickly as possible.

Brent Zundel: chair hat on, the informal decision last week with a review period plus the resolution today means we can merge the PR today.

Manu Sporny: agree with brentz’s justification on merge window.

3. Resolutions