Re: Web Credits Writeup

On 24 January 2012 14:57, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> On 01/20/2012 02:47 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>>
>> Here's a quick writeup of what I previously posted as the opentabs
>> protocol.  I've codenamed it 'Web Credits' for now and put it on the
>> wiki.
>
>
> Looks good so far Melvin, some feedback on each section:

Awesome, thanks! :)

>
>
>> "The aim of this spec is not to exceed 2 pages"
>
>
> This is always a nice goal to have, but I have never seen a useful two
> page specification. Many short specifications build on other
> technologies and there isn't usually anything useful that they bring to
> the table... there are, of course, exceptions - but most useful
> technology specs can't be fit into two pages. Just food for thought.

The aim is to be concise, focus on the data later, and perhaps a
gateway to wider ecommerce.  The original use case is of record
keeping between trusted agents.  But if done in an abstact way, you
get extensibility to the general case.

>
>> Authentication
>
>
> I'd at least point to OAuth 2, Web ID, Web Keys here.

Sure I'll spend some time wring up a wiki page on Auth options (which
linked to that section).  I've spent quite a bit of time on auth in
the last few years.

>
>> Displaying a Wallet
>
>
> Wallet doesn't seem to be the right terminology here. I see what you're
> going for... but what you're really talking about here is closer to a
> public transaction log. "Wallet" bends the definition to the point that
> it may not be recognizable to a lay person.

It's not necessarily public.  In many cases the user will have a
private wallet (eg using ACL).

I essentially want to capture the idea of a group of Transfers in a
file (wallet seemed an understandable metaphor, but maybe the wrong
term technically).  Very open to alternative modeling approaches.

>
>> Adding Transfers
>
>
> I suggest just sticking with POST for now.

Great, changed.

>
>> Storage
>
>
> Use JSON-LD compact form... it makes ones eyes bleed a little less. :)
> Your IOU vocabulary could be small enough that you could just use keywords?
>
> {
>  "@context": "http://purl.org/commerce/context",
>  "@id": "#1234567890",
>  "@type": http://purl.org/commerce#Transfer"
>  "source": "http://melvincarvalho.com#me",
>  "destination": "http://webr3.org/nathan#me",
>  "amount": "5.00",
>  "currency": "EUR",
>  "comment": "Just a test IOU",
>  "created": "2011-12-20T15:42:41.030Z",
> }

That looks awesome.

This is the so-called "compacted" form?

What are your thoughts on using dc:created as a timestamp, and then
maintaining one context.

I've spoken to a few people on this, timestamp is generally encouraged.

The drupal guys use a created and updated timestamp.

>
>> Alternative Currencies
>
>
> Good that they're supported... you're going to want to outline /how/
> they're supported since this is a spec. You could point to the PaySwarm
> spec to do so, since that has a section on alternative currencies.

Sure, that helps.

>
>> ACL
>
>
> ACL and Authentication may need to be in the same section.

They are certainly related.  But can be separated, which is the
paradigm we have on data.fm, or you can build them as one join system.

>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: PaySwarm vs. OpenTransact Shootout
> http://manu.sporny.org/2011/web-payments-comparison/
>

Received on Tuesday, 24 January 2012 14:14:25 UTC