W3C

– DRAFT –
Decentralized Identifier Working Group

29 January 2026

Attendees

Present
bigbluehat, dmitriz, JennieM, smccown, swcurran, Wip
Regrets
-
Chair
Wip
Scribe
ottomorac, Wip

Meeting minutes

Agenda Review, Introductions (5 min)

Today we are going to review a few issues...

then review PRs but we want to focus on DID path discussion...

Also Manu will be out today...

DID Issues \[1\] (10 min)

<Wip> close item

<Wip> https://github.com/w3c/did-resolution/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3Adiscuss

Wip: would like to discuss these issues... but first would like to highlight that I have reviewed the TAG isssues...

DID Resolution Issues \[2\] (15 min)

Wip: I noticed a few points that were missed and that needed to be handled via issues...

w3c/did-resolution#226

Wip: This is another one from Jeffrey regarding incosistent resolution...

Wip: I think we have talked about this before but it seems the confusion is around version id and version time....

<swcurran> Amen

Wip: There are some DID parameters like version ID and version time that are part of the resolution process...

Wip: Please see the comment I added there about this

Wip: I think we also discussed this at TPAC right Joe?

JoeAndrieu: Yes, I think this more of a communication problem I think...

JoeAndrieu: I think I need some time to analyze this

JoeAndrieu: The issue is that some parameters are resolution specific and some are did method specific...

<swcurran> 100% Joe

Wip: ok thanks

Wip: I guess the piece that is confusing, having a DID URL dereferencer (there is currently a term in the spec for this) but we don't use it consistently... sometimes we instead to a DID resolver as doing de-referencing

<dmitriz> +1 agree, re getting rid of 'dereferencer' term

Swcurran: I 100% agree, but talking to Markus he doesn't think that should be the path....

Swcurran: I was confused by this, in my change I refer mainly to DID URL de-referencing...

JoeAndrieu: I think we should not get rid of the URL de-referencing terminology....

JoeAndrieu: Maybe we should clarify how this works, there is consensus here that the DID Resolver does not do de-referencing itself....

Wip: Yes I don't think we should get rid of DID URL de-referencing generally, but just the specific term of "DID URL de-referencer"

<dmitriz> (agreed, dereferencing is fine, it's the -er part that we should drop)

Swcurran: Yes I think that the purpose of the spec is that what is returned could be did doc or a modified did doc, or a list of URLs, or even an error....

Swcurran: but we need to clarify the ways in which this is returned....

JoeAndrieu: Yes it is kind of fuzzy...

JoeAndrieu: I think the cannon is that URLs should always return a resource...

TallTed: I think that having an analogous process might help....

Tallted: When you are programming there is a memory location, you resolving the reference to the location, and then you get the resource in memory....

w3c/did-resolution#274

Wip: Jeffrey is saying there is a statement in the spec that mentions proofs but is not clear....

Wip: I wonder if they best way to handle this is just to remove this statement from the spec in section 7

JoeAndrieu: Yes I think this statement is incorrect...

JoeAndrieu: We don't have a standard way to put a proof in DID doc... so yes remove it...

JoeAndrieu: the security model you have is to trust the resolver...

JoeAndrieu: some of this will come out in the Threat Modelling section...

Wip: Yes I think the best way is to just remove this statement....

w3c/did-resolution#277

Wip: Raised by Joe about removing proxy resolvers, seems like we have some discussion on it...
… maybe you can tell us your perspective on it?

JoeAndrieu: I think this mostly downstream of the Threat Modelling, when you have a proxy you then have these threats.....

JoeAndrieu: I think the challenge is getting discussion framework so that speak on the same terms... the threat model should help us on that

w3c/did-resolution#283

Wip: this is another one from Jeffrey, he is asking if the did documents extension should use W3C or IANA registry mechanism?

JoeAndrieu: Unfortunately we did just pass a resolution that we need a formal registry, but we havent addressed this work yet... we should have started on this some time ago

Wip: I think we can communicate that back to Jeffrey, that we do intend to address it but we just haven't able to get to it...

w3c/did-resolution#284

Wip: this is related to the language of DID parameters.... Jeffrey points to a few changes we should do....

Wip: Also there is a sentence that I find confusing that I pointed out there in the issue...

Wip: Do people agree we should do these changes?

JoeAndrieu: I think there is a strange conflation here...

JoeAndrieu: related to the oppacity of URLs, it changes if you know how to construct a URL

JoeAndrieu: we dont have a good way to manage this complexity

TallTed: Yes I think you are going in the right direction...

TallTed: When you are server-side you know what all parameters mean...

TallTed: however when you provide this to someone outside the organization they may not know the meaning of these params...

TallTed: versionID and versionTime may not mean the same....

TallTed: This is why they should be treated as oppaque

<Wip> act JoeAndrieu

TallTed: The entity that is serving the DID and DID doc they can do whatever they like, but the person that is resolving and de-referencing....

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to say this is the same Q as resolution/dereferencing

TallTed: that is just the nature of the problem

JoeAndrieu: I think there are parts that cannot be resolved, but we can still have better language

JoeAndrieu: please assign this issue to me

Avoid Duplicate Terms \[3\] (5 min)

w3c/did-resolution#285

Wip: this is about avoiding duplicate terms...

ottomorac: This addresses issue #232. Some changes were first required in DID core.
… This PR removes all duplicate terms from DID resolution
… The only terms I have not removed are resource and representation
… I saw two comments, one from Will related to DID service endpoints
… Another suggestion from Ted, which I adopted to use captials for DID

Wip: I think its fine, it would be better to perhaps have a more generic way of referencing to just "service endpoint", instead "DID Service Endpoint"

DID Path PR \[4\] (15 min)

w3c/did-resolution#260

Swcurran: I summarized it on my comment there...

Swcurran: now after some conversations I have decided to move it merge it with the previous section #8

Swcurran: Now this hopefully matches the way the algorithm says

Swcurran: I think this should be in good shape, just wondering what happens to the JSON LD context with the introduction of "base path"?

Swcurran: Would appreciate if folks can read through the change

Swcurran: I need some help to clarify that part about JSON LD, I am not very familiar with that

Wip: yeah perhaps we need to check with Manu or Ivan on this...

Wip: Yeah would appreciate reviews, also did you check with Markus?

Swcurran: Yes I did talk to him, he doesn't like that some of this can be done with serviceType and relativeRef already

Swcurran: He doesn't like that we have 2 ways of doing that

<dmitriz> +1 stephen

Swcurran: I think however this might be a better way

Swcurran: I think most implementers will choose this DID path way of doing it...

w3c/did-resolution#150

Wip: This issue raised by Joe, I wonder what is your perspective about this in relation to the DID Path changes from Stephen?

JoeAndrieu: I think some of the changes from Stephen are addressing this...

JoeAndrieu: we are moving towards a canonical way of solving it....

JoeAndrieu: did-core and did-resolution would offer this canonical way now....

Wip: yes agree since the specs would mandate this...

Swcurran: I think did methods don't have to change, but did resolvers should probably change....

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to clarify that pretty much all DID methods have implemented some form of resolution

<swcurran> +1 to Joe

JoeAndrieu: Every did method that is implemented in software, then they have implemented resolution....

Wip: I think 90% of did methods out there will need to update their resolve interface...

<dmitriz> I mean, if nobody else implements resolution, it's the _spec_ that's gonna need to change :)

Next time (5 min)

Wip: Yes please note that next tuesday that we will be in the security interest group, talking to Simone about did resolution...

<Zakim> JoeAndrieu, you wanted to mention diagram and initial threats

Wip: we want Simone to be familiar so that they can do an initial analysis without having a full threat model done...

<Wip> This is the meeting calendar item - https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/6bd81029-7023-4e06-9a9f-86172ef351cb/20260203T160000/

JoeAndrieu: I hope to be there

JoeAndrieu: I will try to show some ideas around a diagram for this....

JoeAndrieu: but we would also like to start the threat model discussion

Wip: it would be great if we can also discuss this in the call next Thursday hopefully

Wip: please if you are available join that meeting

Wip: thanks all!

<Wip> m2gbot, link issues with transcript

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 248 (Mon Oct 27 20:04:16 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/Topic: DID Resolution Issues//

Maybe present: JoeAndrieu, ottomorac, TallTed

All speakers: JoeAndrieu, ottomorac, Swcurran, TallTed, Wip

Active on IRC: bigbluehat, dmitriz, JennieM, JoeAndrieu, ottomorac, smccown, swcurran, TallTed, Wip