DID WG Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-08-31

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Drummond Reed, Charles Lehner, Joe Andrieu, Brent Zundel, Shigeya Suzuki, Ted Thibodeau Jr., Kyle Den Hartog, Adrian Gropper

Regrets: Ivan Herman

Guests:

Chair: Brent Zundel

Scribe(s): Drummond Reed, Kyle Den Hartog

Content:

1. Agenda Review, Introductions

Brent Zundel: agenda is press release, DID Core, notices for TPAC, plan for the next meeting, next charter, DID rubric, and DID Spec Registries

2. Press Release

Brent Zundel: Work is underway. Coralie is working on draft text but not quite ready yet. Should be available for our next meeting.

3. Upcoming SRI Report on DID Core

Brent Zundel: our next meeting will include the report from SRI. They were waiting until they had approval to release openly.
… there was an email with the documents.
… ACTION: Brent will send the report again.
… they will not have time to go over all the material before the call, so please read beforehand, so the bulk of the call can be Q&A.

4. Short videos for TPAC

Brent Zundel: https://www.w3.org/wiki/TPAC2021/Demos_and_Group_updates#Best_Practices_for_Recording_Videos

Brent Zundel: W3C has asked us if we want to prepare a short video for TPAC
… it should demonstrating use of the spec, examples, etc.
… if anyone is interested, reach out to the chairs for more info.

5. Notice about vote for Recommendation on 7th

Brent Zundel: we are operating under process 2020 that has a change in procedure. Previously WGs voted on PR and that was it.
… the process has changed so that now, once the PR goes through the call for review, the WG still votes on moving to a final recommendation.
… so this is just a heads up that this will be done at the next meeting.
… the soonest the public announcement is planned is Sept 23.

6. Next DID WG Charter

See github issue did-wg-charter#11, did-wg-charter#12, did-wg-charter#13.

Brent Zundel: https://github.com/w3c/did-wg-charter/issues

Brent Zundel: the reason this is a longer topic is due to issues that have been raised that we should discuss
… the goal is to go through them briefly, then I encourage WG members to respond in the issues
… the first issue is “one foundational key representation please” from Microsoft.
… this has received extensive discussion in the WG already

Drummond Reed: folks are still encouraged to reply in the issue, especially with citations to our earlier discussions of those topics.

Brent Zundel: Microsoft is recommending non-normative guidance on cross-compatibility between JSON and JSON-LD
… this sort of non-normative guidance would, in Brent’s opinion, be in scope under the new charter
… but would also retrod well-trodden ground
… Microsoft would also like the WG to take the challenge to define a universal, mandatory-to-implement DID method
… this would take the WG out of maintenance mode

Joe Andrieu: There was a proposal to include did:web and did:key in the charter, but that was not done in order to keep it a maintenance WG
… so this could be a chance to do that

Kyle Den Hartog: did:key could work, but worried that did:web would derail the conversation
… and not sure what would be the third

Brent Zundel: The question of what DID methods could reach consensus would be challenging
… did:peer might also be a candidate that could reach consensus

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: Going through the exercise of determining which DID methods could become normative could be a work item for the W3C Credentials Community Group
… but the DID Rubric might be a better tool for evaluating this

Drummond Reed: likes the idea of looking at the DID Rubric and taking an evolutionary path

7. DID Rubric

See github pull request did-rubric#49.

Joe Andrieu: This is the PR that has the proposed registry rules for the DID Rubric registry

Brent Zundel: is there a link to this presentation?

Joe Andrieu: I will share a link with the mailing list
… and I will share my screen to convey the key points
… the slide deck first covered what has been done
… then an evaluation of the rubric was done on the Veres One method
… this report was then shared with the community
… next they are evaluating did:web and did:ion. Both of these will be published when they are ready.
… SBA research also did some evaluations
… the main points we learned is that the Rubric is still in its infancy
… some questions were too academic
… also, structure-variable questions are needed
… also, enforcement was needed
… design was also not included
… implementations may also need to be evaluated separately
… and adversaries need to be evaluated

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: These changes are glorious. I’m very happy about how you have been doing this, and the direction Rubric things are going!

Joe Andrieu: all of these were gaps in the Rubric
… we also need better tools for community engagement
… we also need more discussion about these criteria
… the Rubric also proposes that each evaluator essentially create their own custom rubric with the criteria they need
… shared evaluations also would help
… the Rubric also needs permalinks and persistent identifiers so that references to the Rubric criteria will not break
… the proposal is to turn the Rubric into a registry where criteria can be added, updated, and curated
… updates can be done with a simple PR
… the desire is that the current DID Rubric authors recommend a starting set of rules
… so the net net is that it becomes a mechanism for continuing to improve the criteria for evaluating DID methods
… there are a number of questions about how to proceed

Brent Zundel: RE deadlines, as a WG, we have 4 more WG meetings that we can use to have this conversation
… there is a possibility the WG could be extended to address any objections
… so the last opportunity is by the end of Sept for the existing WG to approve the Note to be taken on by the new WG
… please review the proposed rules

Joe Andrieu: The proposal follows the template of the DID Spec Registries doc
… criteria must be identified and versioned
… subcomponents do not need to be versioned and permalinks
… use cases, methods, and evaluations all need to be cited
… the proposal defines what is needed in a criteria. Each proposed criteria needs at least 3 examples.
… then, for all of those fields, what is required for each field
… it also defines identifiers and how they need to work
… there is a way to provide a TR permalink
… prior criteria will still be retained in future versions in a “Retired” section so that the permalink will still work
… the versioning rules are also defined
… there is also an escalation path for disputes. However the key difference here, the editors retain the ability to curate the content
… that gives the editors more responsibility to maintain the list of curated criteria PLUS a few example evaluations
… that was done in the original Rubric, but that gave excessive visibility to six specific DID methods that they should not have

Brent Zundel: we have 10 mins left to discuss

Drummond Reed: Looking for some clarification here, I originally understood from the last call that this is about the registering of evaluations, but it seems this is about registering criteria. Is this about one or both?
… examples would be cited for showing how to evaluate a criteria, but not for registering the evaluations directly

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: I am really happy about how the Rubric is evolving. I very much like this path, and I hope it continues evolving forever.

Joe Andrieu: I’m very glad to see that. The work of evolving the Rubric has taught us a great deal, and it will continue.

Kyle Den Hartog: I also want to second its usefulness. We learned a lot when evaluating did:key.
… it was possible that my misunderstanding led the WG members astray on the last WG call
… but now that this is clarified, I think this is a great tool

Drummond Reed: what are next steps?
… what are we considering as the next steps to take for this to fit it within the working group time we have left?

Brent Zundel: Next steps are to review the PR ASAP
… the sooner we have feedback on that, the sooner we can have the Rubric in a state where the new WG can take it over as a registry

Joe Andrieu: I will send out an email to the list with the PR and ask for feedback.
… it is seven pages and it has a lot of detail
… Daniel Hardman already caught several improvements that were needed

Brent Zundel: That looks great. Looking forward to the feedback.

Kyle Den Hartog: Wanted to say thanks for accommodating this time zone for one meeting a month

Shigeya Suzuki: +1 for kdenhartog. it works for me well too!

Brent Zundel: Thanks to everyone, and especially Joe for the Rubric registry PR, and to scribes, and to wrapping it all up in Sept.
… also, please jump into the DID WG Charter issue and “make your feelings known”