DID Working Group Telco — Minutes

Date: 2020-01-06

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Daniel Burnett, Ivan Herman, Manu Sporny, Dave Longley, Kaliya Young, Chris Winczewski, Markus Sabadello, Irene Adamski, Joe Andrieu, Drummond Reed, Orie Steele, Dmitri Zagidulin, Justin Richer, Kenneth Ebert, Yancy Ribbens, Michael Jones, Adrian Gropper, Jonathan Holt, Samuel Smith, Christopher Allen, Phil Archer, Benjamin Young, Wayne Chang, Pamela Dingle

Regrets: David Ezell, Ted Thibodeau Jr, Amy Guy

Guests: Tom_S, Sumita T. Jonak, joel

Chair: Daniel Burnett

Scribe(s): Manu Sporny, Justin Richer

Content:

Daniel Burnett: you put the nick and then what they said
… if you do dot dot dot space and no colon it means whatever the last nick

1. Agenda Review, Introductions, Re-introductions

Daniel Burnett: after annoncements we’ll be scheduling upcoming extra calls, then focus on non-recommendation-track documents
… use cases document, rubric document, and any other non-rec documents the group might be interested in
… if we have time, cover pull requests and issues

2. Announcements: Get your issues in; sign up for f2f; Boat tour update; Apr f2f in CA?

Daniel Burnett: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11haGLiY3AYi8uxIQcfndAixmtXjymNTTFbDQWRYkKrQ/edit#gid=0

Daniel Burnett: get issues in before f2f, sign up for f2f meeting

Manu Sporny: quick ping to vote for VCWG maintenence rechartering, ends in 48h

Michael Jones: clarification for issues, should we file a new issue for matrix parameters or continue discussion?

Daniel Burnett: chairs are aware of that question, matrix params will be part of that; separate issue will be cleaner but we’ll get to it
… boat tour

Ivan Herman: boat tour is scheduled, details are boring, 1.5h tour on private boat, about 10-11eur, paid in advance will need to be paid back in AMS

Joe Andrieu: are all attendees to F2F considered going on the boat?

Ivan Herman: final number required 2wk before day (th); made offer on 20ppl, please sign up

Daniel Burnett: is there a tab for the boat tour?

Ivan Herman: there is no separate tour, just everyone attending, maybe add a new tab

Daniel Burnett: yes we should add a new tab
… we’ll send a separate email about the boat tour, please fill in boat column on attendees page

Ivan Herman: we start at 4, we’ll be dropped at 5:30 in center

Daniel Burnett: we encourage everyone to go, it’s social time but informal discussion time is valuable
… a non-announcement announcement – chairs asked if people were interested in f2f in conjunction with meeting in May, no interest
… but what about before/after IIW?

Drummond Reed: +1 to a meeting at IIW

Daniel Burnett: we will make final decisions at f2f, but we’d like a rough idea now; will send out a poll if it’s positive

Joe Andrieu: +1 to a meeting ~IIW

Ivan Herman: -1 (unfortunately I have another trip)

Drummond Reed: +1

Justin Richer: +1 to meeting around IIW but my schedule is tight

Kenneth Ebert: 0

Manu Sporny: +1

Dmitri Zagidulin: +1

Markus Sabadello: +1

Yancy Ribbens: -1

joel: 0

Adrian Gropper: +1

Kaliya Young: +1

Dave Longley: 0

Michael Jones: there’s an OIDF meeting the day before IIW, which wouldn’t work

Samuel Smith: +1

Justin Richer: I would like the Chairs to consider a meeting during IIW, short meeting, realize we’re not deciding that now.

Daniel Burnett: It’s tricky to have an official meeting during another meeting, but the Chairs will consider it.

Joe Andrieu: rebooting is scheduled for 3/16-20 in beunos aires argentina (starting monday night)

Joe Andrieu: http://rwot10.eventbrite.com

Joe Andrieu: eventbrite is up rwot10.eventbrite.com
… first deadline for earlybird papers is the 17th of Jan, earlybird tickets by 24th of Jan
… apologies for the foreshortened schedule

Ivan Herman: is there information on hotels for BA?

Joe Andrieu: we haven’t found a hotel we’re endorsing yet, looking for discounts w/o buying a book of rooms

dbuc: was there going to be spec content discussed on the call? I don’t remember exactly what was said at the start of the meeting

Joe Andrieu: we’ll find some; address in event is specific, there’s a sheraton nearby
… you can get a reasonable hotel or airbnb nearby

3. Schedule Pre-F2f Abstract Data Model calls

Daniel Burnett: https://doodle.com/poll/98zvw5tkgr6hsz3m

Daniel Burnett: scheduling extra calls, not necessarily limited to data model discussions; there’s a doodle poll
… next week looks good; reserve these dates (invites will come)
… Tuesday 1/14 @ 1PM ET (Boston)
… Friday 1/17 @ 1PM ET (Boston)
… Wednesday 1/22 @ 1PM ET (Boston), just in case (if needed)

4. Use Cases Document status update and plan

Justin Richer: Time zones are hard

Daniel Burnett: https://w3c.github.io/did-use-cases/

Daniel Burnett: chairs asked JoeAndrieu and Phil for status on document

Kaliya Young: this may be a dumb question but where is the meeting in Amsterdam

Daniel Burnett: Kaliya, see https://www.w3.org/2019/did-wg/Meetings/F2F/2020.01.Amsterdam

5. Use case document update

Joe Andrieu: asked for input on use cases, goal of 20 or so paragraphs
… we got a bunch of input but need to turn it into PRs, but holidays happened
… goal is to have a draft w/use cases for review @ F2F
… goal of 2nd publication following f2f by 3/16
… to get before rebooting
… other item: people are thinking in terms of waterfall, with requirements first and then development
… not the intent, documenting the consensus of the WG to document why we’re working on DIDs
… one thing evident is that as technical issues solidify people realize use cases that haven’t been written down are driving their discussions
… use cases to be developed in parallel
… expect revisions if consensus changes after deadlines

Phil Archer: apologies for not having been able to spend longer on it; weekly editor meetings to work on the document
… consensus of what the problem statement is
… recoginizing years of work in the community
… starting with a blank sheet is silly

Daniel Burnett: we look forward to having a document to discuss at the f2f

6. Rubric Document plan

Daniel Burnett: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rYdWiwawWmLOWtHRvT0GzYcdewW_OS9M2mAkENLFdtY/edit?pli=1#heading=h.kmwybusdx6vb

Daniel Burnett: this is one of our deliverables; we discussed how to start at TPAC
… work had been incubated in google document; chairs looked @ minutes from TPAC and there’s not yet a decisions to move document into a repo
… we were waiting for more wrap-up work before moving it over

Joe Andrieu: conversation @ TPAC came out from quandy of “what is decentralized enough” and are there requirements for calling something a DID method?
… rubric proposes evaluation technique to tease out what matters to evaluator about a method
… idea was to present a framework for evaluating did methods re: decentralization
… to avoid defining “Decentralization”
… since TPAC (and conversations at IIW and RWOT in Prague), been formatting and editing what’s there (not adding new content) to hand over to the WG
… current status: structure is good, need to continue reformatting
… groups criteria into 5 categories
… initially just a set of questions, realized that bunch were governance; feedback from Scott David (UW)
… then realized some things aren’t about governance
… currently nothing on enforcement
… didn’t want to add new content even though a category is there
… in decentralized systems, enforcement gets baked close to operation; eg proof of work in ledgers
… will need significant work to tease that out
… Daniel Hardman put in a lot of work; many criteria that are useful aren’t about decentralization
… these important things aren’t included in the rubric document; suggest rubric for security and for privacy
… decentralization is not the only thing we should be considering
… should be ready by F2F, whether a final google doc or a PDF from rebooting

Sumita T. Jonak: would love to help with security and privacy; if you have literature on that, please email

Joe Andrieu: the only thing written about that is why we’re doing a rubric so just read the existing one; we kept a lot of proposed criteria that were cut into an appendix
… chairs, consider additional rubrics as part of WG output?

Daniel Burnett: (joe is thinking about second document)
… WG approval needed to publish non-normative document
… start writing something, group can look at it and decide whether we want to publish it (as a note)

Joe Andrieu: putting a draft together at RWOT?
… still might be worth it
… we should just start writing
… security and privacy should be separate work items

Daniel Burnett: we have existing rubric as a charter item, we should focus on that for now
… make sure we continue progressing that
… happy new year!

7. introductions

Daniel Burnett: first time on the call?

Wayne Chang: active in DIF, chair of claims and credentials
… looking at taxonomies for different groups; best practices for DIDs
… have DID and VC parser implementations

Irene Adamski: been on since December, still learning

Pamela Dingle: director of identity standards @ MS, has attended before

Kaliya Young: work for wireline part-time, decentralized network blockchain thing
… official rep to W3C
… to solve this challenge

8. Other non-Rec Track documents (Primers?, Others?)

Daniel Burnett: https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rwot10-buenosaires/tree/master/topics-and-advance-readings

Daniel Burnett: question: should we have a primer? could be very short for people who don’t want to read the whole spec

Joe Andrieu: we’re talking about 2 different documents, long and short version
… RWOT put together a bunch of primers for people who want to get up to speed and dive in
… slightly different mandate for a WG primer
… should the WG publish its own primer?

Daniel Burnett: was not asking for help of RWOT primer, WG would come up with its own

Justin Richer: Is any material that is a Primer more suited for an abstract on the standards docs? As opposed to a formalized document.
… There are other ways to communicate that type of material.

Manu Sporny: +1 to justin, if we do have a few things that do a great job they should be in the abstract/intro
… don’t know if I agree that what we’re trying to do with RWOT is that different; nuance might be important; ideally we’re introducing people to basic concept
… I’d imagine we don’t want two different documents at the end
… primer should be able to be boiled down into intro; when you have multiple docs, it’s not as effective
… as opposed to point everyone to same entry document

Justin Richer: +1 to “entry document” concept

Manu Sporny: does not assume deep technical knowledge

Daniel Burnett: I’ve been in that position before; strong believer in readable specs, including information for non-technical people or non-detailed technical people
… what’s partially sold me on a separate primer is the fact that the introduction is unlikely to have an example of the syntax
… RWOT primer does a great job of this; shows DID, DID document, points to spec for details
… ^– not as chair

Sumita T. Jonak: +1

Phil Archer: +1 to burn

Joe Andrieu: fully agree, if we have a concise intro it should be in the spec
… but main reason is where the moral authority lies; RWOT vs. WG could be different
… context might be different between two communities and engagement in the communities
… both don’t have to be solved in the same chunk of work

Drummond Reed: strong supporter of having a really clear primer that is less technical than the spec
… subject of DIDs seems simple but is relatively deep; been working on other materials to explain it
… much of that could go in a deeper primer

Markus Sabadello: topic of HTTP Range 14 [??] problem for DIDs
… whether the DID identifies a real-world subject or a DID document
… sometimes it’s both, sometimes it’s one or the other for cleanliness
… might seem academic but it impacts topics
… impacts whether DID is URL or URI
… impacts resolution
… impacts metadata
… spent time a year ago discussing this trying to explain this topic, could be a note that we work on

Daniel Burnett: chairs just wanted ideas for what’s appropriate as notes for a group
… but someone needs to write something

Markus Sabadello: Google doc written last year ago about httpRange-14 and DIDs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gSUP9DEp7IO8jyNDsVnC-7Ed6PjbMRxl89nGYUoWoeI/ (could potentially become a WG Note)

Daniel Burnett: would be non-standards track document
… not official but at least prepared by people who should know
… chairs will follow up with call details