DID WG Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-10-19

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Daniel Burnett, Michael Prorock, Adrian Gropper, Shigeya Suzuki, Ryan Grant, Manu Sporny, Ted Thibodeau Jr., Geun-Hyung Kim, Charles Lehner, Justin Richer, Dmitri Zagidulin, Drummond Reed, Juan Caballero, Orie Steele

Regrets: Ivan Herman, Brent Zundel

Guests:

Chair: Daniel Burnett

Scribe(s): Juan Caballero

Content:


1. Agenda Review, Introductions

Daniel Burnett: continuing our interrupted agenda from last week after brief updates on current events
… time permitting, we’ll get to the rubric today as well
… call for updates
… to that agenda

Manu Sporny: I have been working A LOT on the Formal Objections challenge, so i’d be glad to give the update
… on that

Daniel Burnett: timebox to 15min then reconvene?

Manu Sporny: yup

2. DID Spec status update

Manu Sporny: twitter update: people are reporting harassment on twitter, including WG members (which will have to be escalated for the sake of the WG)

Manu Sporny: Guidelines for engaging in discussion - https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2021Oct/0064.html

Manu Sporny: so far, only one person in this WG has crossed the line definitively, but here is a link to guidelines to stay as far from that line as possible
… that helps our cause
… not enough people engaging directly with AC (only mattr, orie, drummond, manu so far)

Drummond Reed: I agree, the more of us who can engage as AC reps, the better

Manu Sporny: I encourage people to engage directly to make us look more cohesive and WG-driven rather than company-driven in debating this
… I think everyone’s seen the minutes from the formal objection meeting. Everyone on all sides found that mtg frustrating
… if TPAC were happening in person, there might be more backchannels and face-to-face resolution and dialogue

Ryan Grant: I’d like to see a frequently-updated list of URLs to engage at. Github, mailing list, newsworthy external mentions.

Manu Sporny: Discussion w/ Google is here – https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-did-wg/2021Oct/0022.html

Drummond Reed: That was an excellent summary message, Manu

Manu Sporny: i’ve been trying to set up chats ad hoc to make up for that lost TPAC opportunity, and the chat with google was particularly helpful to me at least in growing the understanding
… I think we should be trying to achieve similar dialogues with other objectors

Manu Sporny: Juan Caballero: I want to second Ryan’s comments, make sure it’s discussed, a lot of us have no experience with the AC, barely have enough experience w/ W3C process, how can we help. Explain to me like I’m 5, what is an AC rep and how do we engage.

Manu Sporny: I am assuming that lack of experience is widespread and explaining will help
… AC rep is each company’s rep to W3C, i.e., each member org has one
… that rep is supposed to direct input from the rest of your org and vote on your company’s behalf, speak for the org in various channels, etc
… these reps tend to be the most organizationally savvy people; the W3C AC forum is the switchboard
… in this case, they forward emails and inputs to the “formal objection council”
… there is also a meta conversation about what form formal objection councils should look like in general

Juan Caballero: What is the step by step? Email AC rep, tell them what to forward to whom?

Manu Sporny: anyone at a member company can write an email for the Formal Objection Council and/or the AC mailing list, and their AC rep can forward it
… but, caveat emptor, the AC list doesn’t love hit and runs
… so your AC rep might forward back questions and followups from them, etc
… Another tip: don’t spam the list

Orie Steele: See issues: https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/278 - https://github.com/w3c/w3process/issues/580

Ryan Grant: in 15seconds, i think the recusal thing is really important, and it’s just hitting me now:
… you have people suggesting the org should be run in a way that allows moral hazard (and conflict of interest) because their MH/CoI was declared at the outset
… and I think this group should pay attention to that inside-baseball meta conversation

Manu Sporny: I think the AC needs exactly that kind of input
… the AC deals directly with the recusal process, and if you tell that what you just told us, it helps!
… if they don’t hear about it on their list, they don’t know about it

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: To find out who your AC rep is (Member-only link) – https://www.w3.org/Member/ACList

Daniel Burnett: ted dropped a helpful members-only authenticated link that will tell you who your AC rep is if you don’t know

Manu Sporny: we should consider the objections in how we recharter this group down the line, although maybe we should talk about that at a future DID-WG meeting

Daniel Burnett: I am inclined to table it for now if we can wait because we have Orie here
… also, importantly, we have a TPAC meeting thursday of next week
… so apologies for the agenda confusion
… reminder, TPAC meeting is 11-1 Eastern Time thursday , likely with Jeff Jaffe in attendance

Manu Sporny: Jeff Jaffe is W3C’s CEO.

Manu Sporny: i’d like to discuss google’s input and what we’re thinking by way of response , and what a rechartered DID-WG could look like

Ryan Grant: Oh, along with URLs request, I’d also appreciate frequent updates on expected timelines.

Daniel Burnett: Ryan, we are in uncharted territory, so timeline predictions are difficult. We will give what info we have.

Manu Sporny: JJ will likely be there to check in on big-picture questions about whether the WG is proceeding according to plan/procedures, whether a recharter would address some of this, etc
… so discussing tuesday before thursday and getting on the same page would help, i think

Daniel Burnett: we can decide later whether to meet tuesday

Drummond Reed: from my POV, knowing which TPAC meetings to try to attend would help, so some strategizing would help

Daniel Burnett: we’re a little behind, but we will continue this conversation over email
… and workshop an agenda at next week’s LATER TIME (US evening) regularly scheduled meeting

Orie Steele: tbc, we have no procedurally-explicit deadline for resolution of this objection?

Daniel Burnett: Yes, that is our understanding– we are in unchartered waters and the meta conversation is happening at the same time as the conversation
… it’s… not easy not knowing that
… there is a statement about recusal in the official statement, claiming “those with CoI should recuse themselves” but no precision to that should or definition of individual and/or corporate conflicts of interest

Manu Sporny: blog! write! engage your AC rep!

3. A note about Core issues

Daniel Burnett: this is a brief note we’d wanted to make 3ish weeks ago. We (the chairs) know that issues will continue to be raised, but WG is now in “pause mode” on all non-urgent issues to focus entirely on CR ratification
… so be warned that core spec non-urgent issues will be addressed slowly
… note: other items this WG works on will proceed closer to the usual pace

4. DID Registry Resolutions

4.1. change registry columns per issue #83 (pr did-spec-registries#341)

Orie Steele: PR reviews: https://github.com/w3c/did-spec-registries/pull/341

See github pull request did-spec-registries#341.

See github issue did-spec-registries#83.

Daniel Burnett: framing questions: what’s necessary to continue the work? can everything else work on github as issues?

Orie Steele: i want to thank ryan for an issue-first, PR-second approach that resolves many registry problems
… we haven’t always been timely about the registry, so plz plz review those PRs, it helps us with many of our core issues as a WG
… i won’t summarize ryan’s very broad PR because it covers a lot of ground but review it soon, particularly if you have a did method that might get booted by its being merged!

Drummond Reed: i think this PR is urgent vis-a-vis the formal objections!
… I shared a link to an alternative solution opened in another issue

Manu Sporny: since we’re on that issue (pr 341), my only suggestion is to replace “non-compliant” with “provisional”
… or rather, NOT to replace it– we will look bad if we overnight switch most of our registry to “non-compliant”

Drummond Reed: +1 to not using “non-compliant”. But https://github.com/w3c/did-spec-registries/issues/83 proposes a more comprehensive solution.

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: “experimental”?

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: “beta-compliant”?

Manu Sporny: replace “non-compliant” with “provisional” in the PR, i mean

Drummond Reed: +1 to “trolling the DID method spec authors”

Drummond Reed: Comment being discussed: https://github.com/w3c/did-spec-registries/issues/83#issuecomment-946075510

Ryan Grant: I was trolling, it’s true, or put a little fire under them. I would support drummond’s solution and I think it addresses manu’s objection

Orie Steele: I will happily review a PR drummond, you are welcome to open one.

Manu Sporny: maybe we are not thinking enough about ungenerous readings– we don’t want people marked as “noncompliant” for having been compliant and having passed a test suite before breaking changes

Michael Prorock: +1 manu - wording and appearances are very important right now

Manu Sporny: and we also don’t want to hand a “gotcha” opportunity to those who will comb through our github looking for evidence that we aren’t running a proper WG here
… or that we’ve wasted effort

Daniel Burnett: +1 manu

Drummond Reed: I put a link to a sidestepping solution– a 1.0 compliant table distinct from the existing table that includes all the provisionals as-is
… as long as there is some contextualizing explanation above both

Orie Steele: basically, we need PRs… there are already enough issues….

Drummond Reed: I will work with Ryan on doing this in PRs
… if the group supports it

Ryan Grant: First of all, Manu thanks for correcting the record on the amount of interop that these specs have already achieved
… I wasn’t trolling to be annoying, I was hoping to avoid value judgments or partisanship in the editing of this registry
… just to explain the choice of words, even if i support solutions using a diff word

5. DID Registry Issues

Daniel Burnett: hand it back to orie with a suggestion for how to proceed
… namely, I caught your comment in the chat asking for PRs not issues
… and I support you in walking through the issues in whatever order and assign PRs to people if you think that would help

Orie Steele: yes, that sounds good. without assigning the issues to individuals, they will never get closed. we need to periodically review and re-assign
… the most urgent one is ryan’s PR and drummond’s suggestions
… in general, i think “request changes” function should be as concrete and implementable as possible– don’t keep discussing, suggest specific changes or even make them
… and i think the registries need regular issue review

Daniel Burnett: https://github.com/w3c/did-spec-registries/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-asc

Drummond Reed: +1 to doing regular issue review on the DID Spec Registries from now on

Manu Sporny: agree

Daniel Burnett: yes, WG deprioritized the registry for a while, but I think as we transition to maintenance mode, we can re-prioritize the registry

Orie Steele: yes, let’s go issue by issue

5.1. Update context links for the signature suites (issue did-spec-registries#310)

See github issue did-spec-registries#310.

Michael Prorock: +1 close

Orie Steele: this one is stale, seems closeable

Daniel Burnett: sidebar: fine to proceed a little faster with an “any objections?”

Manu Sporny: a link to a PR that closed this issue would be nice

Manu Sporny: +1 to close.

5.2. Need to review the DID NS (issue did-spec-registries#322)

See github issue did-spec-registries#322.

Juan Caballero: https://github.com/w3c/did-spec-registries/issues/13#issuecomment-887876417

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: contains link, which shows plenty of discussion and resolution

Orie Steele: yup, makes sense, all signs point towards closeability

Manu Sporny: no objection to closing

5.3. Unresolved issues from CCG did-method-registry repo (issue did-spec-registries#105)

See github issue did-spec-registries#105.

Orie Steele: I maintain, as i did at the time, that this issue is broad and should be closed and replaced with smaller, PR-able issues

Manu Sporny: there were method spec links missing at the time

Daniel Burnett: but newer issues track that, we don’t need to keep this one open to track it

Orie Steele: +1

Manu Sporny: i’m not sure that’s true for every issue covered here
… in particular the “did method spec” versioning (i agree that the missing did method spec links will be handled by ryan’s PR or follow-up PRs)
… so yes, i think we can close

Orie Steele: if you’d leave a comment, that would help. otherwise, no objections?

Ryan Grant: I just posted a comment

Daniel Burnett: the most important reason for all this commenting-before-closing is to make explicit that issues are never closed without resolving

Drummond Reed: +1 to closing

Daniel Burnett: and if someone can link to the part where the missing-spec-links are part of ryan’s PR, that would help too

5.4. Microsoft has approved did:github or it has been removed from the registry (issue did-spec-registries#94)

See github issue did-spec-registries#94.

Orie Steele: i’ve reached out to MSFT about this multiple times, no feedback, i say we close and re-open if concerns get raised

Manu Sporny: i think we should be more worried about the trademark issue

Orie Steele: comment in the thread?

Ted Thibodeau Jr.: i think the trademark issue is being misconstrued a bit– if there were a trademarked DID METHOD, sure, but a trademark in another sector does not apply to this sector
… and did methods can be named after trademarked words if the trademark doesn’t include esoteric namespaces

Manu Sporny: but “login with github” is a thing, i think it’s too close for comfort!

Daniel Burnett: ok this is what we wanted– discussion leads to either closing or a PR

Orie Steele: everything manu said should be in the issue, and now it’s in the issue
… so it’s ready for PR now
… i can work with that

Ryan Grant: thanks Orie!

Daniel Burnett: this kind of progress helps, looking forward to seeing everyone again next week at our regular (LATE) time