W3C

– DRAFT –
Decentralized Identifier Working Group

24 October 2024

Attendees

Present
ChristopherA, danpape, ivan, JennieM, JoeAndrieu, KevinDean, pchampin, swcurran, TallTed, Wip
Regrets
-
Chair
Will Abramson
Scribe
danpape

Meeting minutes

<swcurran> Is there as guide to how to scribe?

<KevinDean> https://w3c.github.io/scribe2/scribedoc.html

Agenda Review

<Zakim> manu, you wanted to cover other procedural items

Update on Procedural Items

manu: controller document seems to be ready to transition to candidate recommendation.

<manu> https://w3c.github.io/controller-document/

manu: will meet after IIW to look at next steps.

manu: once in CR, we can start to modify DID Core Rec.

<manu> Poll to rename Controller Document specification: https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vc-wg/2024Oct/0017.html

manu: poll will be open for next three weeks.

<Zakim> ChristopherA, you wanted to ask about latest changes to vc controller potential CR.

<Zakim> manu, you wanted to respond to ChristopherA

<swcurran> The email yesterday says one vote per VCWG member. Not DID WG Members?

manu: TAG taking issues with DID spec

manu: we have been dealing with the issues and no major comments yet

manu: we want to point them to DID Use cases doc, but there is requirements section with 21 points, but controller document only meets 10 of them.

manu: but this group shoudn't be worried about it too much.

christopherA: Did abstract syntax model come up?

manu: not really

<Zakim> ChristopherA, you wanted to ask about CBOR note for controller documents

manu: we added some clarifications that seemed good, they want semantics to be clean, but they didn't ask we take the ADM out.

christopherA: is there sufficient interest in this community to work on CBOR for controller docs?

manu: we could put it in DID core, but not really the best place.

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to say I think it's a new spec

<manu> Agree with Joe that it's a new spec.

JoeAndrieu: want to caution to put it in DID core. should be its own spec.

manu: should just create an issue in DID core to track it, not put text in the spec.

IETF Announcement

wip: should we participate in the IETF meeting?

<Zakim> manu, you wanted to note I can't make next two weeks.

manu: I will be out the next two weeks.

ChristopherA: I will attend the APAC meeting. if we cancel too much, we will lose what interest we have.

<manu> APAC is important, we should keep those meetings (long term).

ChristopherA: hard to keep APAC folks updated without manu?

JoeAndrieu: I will also be there.

DID Extensions

Wip: we want to talk about DID extensions on a more regular basis.
… how can we lead that discussion?

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to bring up semantic overreach: properties changing how we interpret path, query, and fragment parts.

JoeAndrieu: we have properties in the extensions for path parts. might be a bad idea, we need to be clear about different url parts.

markus_sabadello: it might be too late for that, especially regarding other parameters.
… I talked about that in my TPAC presentation.
… sometimes parameters affect resolution, sometimes other processing as well.

ChristopherA: seems like we need hints for resolution mechanism in the extenstions. Maybe hints for the resolver.
… resolver instructions and requests for data should be separate.

<Zakim> manu, you wanted to speak to "too late"

manu: agree, that makes sense.
… re: "too late to do this". There are features we get criticism for. We should try to establish some defaults for how to interpret DID methods.
… worth talking about all the many interpretations. does it harm our ecosystem?
… I don't think we are too late for some did methods that don't have much deployment yet. we should tighten up text around paths and parameters.

Wip: this is important discussion, how to we track this?

ChristopherA: I will start an issue for us.

markus_sabadello: there are also issues on dereferencing. I should break up some of the larger issues and make new smaller ones.
… we created matrix params years ago, we wanted to try to keep things separate between parameters for identifiers.
… maybe we can categorize params in the registration group.

pchampin: default behavior sounds good to me.

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to say we still have issues of conflict when two extensions are both present, but each have different interpretations of a URL part

pchampin: I won't be reassured to hear that DID methods could override default behavior. may hurt interop.

<Zakim> ChristopherA, you wanted to ask what does those people using VC controller want?

JoeAndrieu: we want to make it easy to share properties. maybe explore markus's idea about categrories.

ChristopherA: want to ask manu if we talk about non DID community, do they want something from controller docs?

manu: they just want clearly defined https urls
… activitypub have "active documents"

w3c/did-extensions#565

<ChristopherA> I just added w3c/did-extensions#582

ChristopherA: in issue 565, there is some recent discussion about TPAC slides and meeting notes.
… I want to note we didn't formally accept anything from the proposal.
… there was consensus to do some exploration.
… to recap: we want to avoid name collisions; simple spec requirements; we called them provisional, but we need a PR to renew provision.
… some proposal for an official w3c registry.
… Big thing missing: Joe's issue 569. We have a goal to avoid name collisions, but maybe that shouldn't be a requirement.
… Is there anything we want to firm up or get consensus on?
… any action items?

manu: we need to move this forward. most pressing: create a new view for DID methods.
… people say: too many DID methods. can we clean up abandoned ones?
… maybe say after a period of time, we need to see an implementation. No spec-only methods.
… perhaps we need to see a resolver that works? maybe a driver for universal resolver.

<JoeAndrieu> fyi, 200 methods today

manu: we need a higher bar on methods that we show?
… I am concerned about negative thoughts if our registry has different methods for the same DID method name.
… if we allow it, then maybe a duplicate method needs to have a concreate implementation. or at least more concrete than the previous method.

<Zakim> ChristopherA, you wanted to ask if we should just initially add one or more field to the method json.

ChristopherA: do we want to change this all at once? maybe just add a few field to method's JSON entry.
… if you don't update, we will remove your old method.

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to mention white pages semantics

JoeAndrieu: speak to better semantics: let's call it a white pages? no worries there about duplicates.
… I don't care about people who want centralized registries. we are all about decentralization.

KevinDean: +1 to Joe

<manu> Yes, Joe's arguments for why allowing multiple registrations do resonate with me.

<swcurran> -1 to Joe. We want decentralized identifiers primarily, decentralized DID methods secondarily

KevinDean: but it should be ok for developers of methods to not be production ready yet.

Wip: we should encourage method owners to start making implementations.

manu: I'd be fine if we add expiration date on method specs without an implementation

<swcurran> +1 for expiration. Could also have a second list in the registry of deprecated methods.

manu: we could do it automatically. give people six months to reply or submit something.
… maybe we sort results in registry by most recently updated
… but that might not get us to where we want to be.

<swcurran> +1 to manu

manu: let's propose adding expiration date.

<Zakim> ChristopherA, you wanted to ask "can get consensus to just add expiration date"?

<JoeAndrieu> registration/update?

ChristopherA: +1

ChristopherA: however, we need to address larger problem. people need to fix and update their specs.

ivan: we should say more about what update means. do they just have to change the date, or should be make substantial updates?

KevinDean: I am concerned about governance about this. managing expiration dates is out of scope of our group.

<Zakim> manu, you wanted to note that we can discuss that in another proposal :)

manu: unfortunately, we are well down that path.
… (managing dates)
… I tried to keep my draft proposal above to be simple incremental progress.
… does require more discussion.

Wip: let's talk about this next time.

<Zakim> ChristopherA, you wanted to answer Ivan

ChristopherA: two things: we have volunteers to deal with expiratin dates (CCG, manu)
… want to let ivan know that manu is proposing last updated date, not an expiration date.
… we can automate the filtering of the method list.

ivan: I'm not opposed to last updated. however, I'm uneasy about sticking in things without clear semantics.

KevinDean: I don't have problem with how things are today. But I'm worried about long-term. what happens years down the line if methods aren't updated?

DID Resolution

<markus_sabadello> https://github.com/w3c/did-resolution/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Adiscuss

markus_sabadello: please see above link
… there are four initial feedback issues. we need to check if there are other topics and possibly split them up.

Wip: the issues seem broad. we need people to look at them and help split them.

<markus_sabadello> w3c/did-resolution#8

markus_sabadello: issue 8 is six years old, but could be interesting to look at
… this one talks about linking DIDs to domain names, other things too.
… this could be a topic at IIW next week.
… should we add any of that language to DID resolution spec?
… or at least we make the spec flexible enough to support it.

Wip: good discussion today.
… next week is APAC meething time.

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 238 (Fri Oct 18 20:51:13 2024 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/I will be there./I will attend the APAC meeting.

Succeeded: s|present-||

Maybe present: manu, markus_sabadello

All speakers: christopherA, ivan, JoeAndrieu, KevinDean, manu, markus_sabadello, pchampin, wip

Active on IRC: ChristopherA, danpape, ivan, JennieM, JoeAndrieu, KevinDean, manu, markus_sabadello, pchampin, swcurran, TallTed, Wip