Verifiable Claims Telecon Minutes for 2016-12-06

Thanks to Gregg Kellogg for scribing this week! The minutes
for this week's Verifiable Claims telecon are now available:

http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-12-06/

Full text of the discussion follows for W3C archival purposes.
Audio from the meeting is available as well (link provided below).

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Verifiable Claims Telecon Minutes for 2016-12-06

Agenda:
  https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments-ig/2016Dec/0002.html
Topics:
  1. Introduction to John Koshy
  2. Rebooting Web of Trust, Paris
  3. Issue Prioritization
  4. Use of JSON/JSON-LD in spec
Organizer:
  Manu Sporny
Scribe:
  Gregg Kellogg
Present:
  Gregg Kellogg, John Koshy, Christopher Allen, Manu Sporny, Matt 
  Stone, Drummond Reed, Eric Korb, John Tibbetts, David Ezell, 
  Jonathan Holt, Rob Trainer, Nathan George, David I. Lehn, Adam 
  Lake, Colleen Kennedy, Adam Migus
Audio:
  http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-12-06/audio.ogg

Gregg Kellogg is scribing.

Topic: Introduction to John Koshy

John Koshy:  I’m a freelance consultant working in healthcare in 
  the D.C. area.
  … When the ONC invited whitepapers we responded about how the 
  blockchain can help reduce administrative costs. That’s where I 
  met Manu. Looking forward to learning from this community and 
  helping where I can.

Topic: Rebooting Web of Trust, Paris

Christopher Allen:  I’ve been hosting such conferences that a 
  number of members of the VC community have atteneded. The last 
  three were in the US, the next in Paris on April 21 (fri-sun). To 
  continue moving forward the agenda.
  … We’re oriented towards being a customer of VC for self-sov 
  solutions.
Manu Sporny:  I’m wondering if we should try to organize a VC F2F 
  with Rebooting. I agree with ChristopherA that there’s been a 
  great amount of cross-fertilization. We have IIW and Rebooting 
  WoT initiatives.
Christopher Allen: IEEE S&P is Wed-Fri after #RebootingWebOfTrust
Christopher Allen: Mon Tue would be good
  … Because we’ve had the meetings in the US, and because TPAC is 
  in Burlingame in 2017, it might be good to have an F2F in Europe.
Christopher Allen: 24Th - 25th is right before IEEE S&P
Christopher Allen:  We’re trying to get this funded by sponsors 
  and be at a retriet center. In lieu of that, it may be at the old 
  stock exchange.
  … David Robert is the contact. If you want to have space 
  surrounding that, the Mon-Tue could be arranged.
Matt Stone:  In terms of timing, if we get the approval in 
  January for the WG, is April a reaesonable time?
Manu Sporny:  Yes, it’s in the middle of the year, and good time 
  before TPAC. PhilA was right that WGs don’t really get going 
  until people get together, but we’ve already done that, so April 
  is probably okay.

Topic: Issue Prioritization

Manu Sporny: https://github.com/opencreds/vc-data-model/issues
Matt Stone:  How do we want to prioritize issues?
Manu Sporny:  We have a number of issues so far. It’s nice to see 
  discussion over the last week.
  … Now we have ~27 open issues, and we need to start 
  catagorizing and prioritizing. The best I’ve seen a group do is 
  about 8 issues in a call, and that’s when there’s no discussion 
  necessary. With discussion, just 1-2 per call.
  … Given what we have, this could be a year of discussion.
  … The WG hasn’t started; when it starts, there may be members 
  not here now; they may request opening old issues.
  … For example, the decision around JWT or LD Signatures; that 
  could take many months to get to a decision.
  … Editorial issues can be handled more easily. We should 
  prioritize things that aren’t at risk for being re-opened.
  … JWT had a lot of discussion, but it’s too early to resolve.
  … There are about 15 issues around privacy, which will be 
  long-term discussion topics.
  … There is also a question of we should keep JSON and JSON-LD 
  are separate? Should we de-emphasize the -LD bit?
Drummond Reed: +1 To their being no simple issues when it comes 
  to privacy
Eric Korb: +1 JSON-LD
Manu Sporny:  Categories aren’t there yet. Usually the chairs and 
  staff monitor discussion and figure out which issues to work on 
  each week.
  … That’s not done with tags. Some WGs have tried to create 
  “sprints” using milestones. How the group manages that is up to 
  chairs and staff.
  … We may want to have a wiki for chairs/staff to describe 
  priorities, and keep it updated.
Gregg Kellogg:  Face to face meetings can be very effective of 
  processing issues. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Matt Stone: F2F is a great way to deal with the more "gnarly" 
  issues - organize to hit them in April at the meeting
Gregg Kellogg:  We should really try to grease the skids for an 
  April face-to-face so we have a chance of coming through there by 
  getting through more gnarly work items. [scribe assist by Manu 
  Sporny]
Matt Stone:  We should work on that in the 2-3 meetings before 
  the F2F.
Christopher Allen:  I’d like to prioirtize things we can close 
  early, so we can get work done.
  … I’m in the midst of comissioning people to begin to use the 
  proposed formats to do some real demos. I recognize that 
  everything could change, but I’d like to settle some of these 
  things early: Using JSON, using some kind of signature for that.
Matt Stone:  I think that’s good for the group to get 
  implementors started, so that in 9 months we can show movement.
John Tibbetts: Still working on it
Manu Sporny:  Just to agree with Christopher, as you may know, 
  Digital Bazaar has implemented much of this. If there is 
  something that’s blocking folks from implementing, we want to get 
  that cleared first.
  … At the end of the day, a spec is useless if there aren’t 
  implementors that are implementing. If we have implementors 
  demanding resolution, we should work hard to get these things 
  settled, and get the spec and test suite updated.
Matt Stone: +1 On supporting implementors
  … That said, what’s blocking you now?
Christopher Allen:  I’d say that questions about 
  canonicalization. I’d love to say we’re going to do JSON-LD, but 
  if not, I need to know sooner rather than later.
  … I can survive with a format that’s not RDF, but I need to 
  know sooner rather than later.
John Tibbetts:  I want to be sure that before we go too far about 
  JSON vs -LD, I strongly feel we need to pursue the -LD bit, but I 
  think there are some tactics we can use to make it more 
  tollerable.
  … I’m suggesting we soft-pedel some of the LD parts, as not 
  everyone needs that level, but it’s important to preserve as a 
  basis for the technology.
Christopher Allen:  I want to draw a distinction… We need a 
  strategy for how to deal with those that come back with issues on 
  JSON-LD, but I’m confused on how to do it.
Manu Sporny:  Fundmentally, implementations win; if implementors 
  don’t follow the spec, the spec doesn’t matter.
  … What Christopher asked is about C14N, and would like to 
  resolve this. Note that we left C14N out of the charter, as it 
  was/is a lightning-rod, and we’ve been blocked on that.
  … The reason we did that was for implementors to have a chance 
  outside of the standards process on what they like, and handle 
  that in round-2.
Eric Korb: For those needing a definition, in computer science, 
  canonicalization (sometimes standardization or normalization) is 
  a process for converting data that has more than one possible 
  representation into a "standard", "normal", or canonical form.
  … The reason we did that was to allow implementors more 
  options. That discussion is between people like ChristopherA, and 
  whoever is doing implementations. We’ll get together outside of 
  the standardization process and figure out what to use. The W3C 
  process is too slow when trying to do implementations and deploy.
  … The short answer is that we’ll need to nail C14N outside of 
  the WG, and give the WG heads up as to where we are. If there are 
  three companies doing C14N in a specific way.
Matt Stone:  If that’s our strategy, are those discussions fair 
  game for these calls?
  … 2ndly, Pierson is working in this area, if we’re working 
  outside this call, what’s the best way for us to do this.
Gregg Kellogg:  The Credentials CG still exists and can be an 
  ongoing forum for these WG discussions. That's the purpose of the 
  CG [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Gregg Kellogg:  I wanted to react to Manu's strategy to keep 
  canonicalization out of spec, get to them in a next round, I 
  worry that that's being quite optimistic. Timeframe doesn't do a 
  good service to the community. It's really hard to get a WG done, 
  usually after a WG has completed, there is usually not a big 
  appetite to get back to it. It might be five years before another 
  WG is created to have a remit to deal with canonicalizatin. Is 
  there a way to keep it in as a  [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Manu Sporny: Stretch goal so a WG could react to implementation 
  experience.
Manu Sporny:  I think we’re in a difficult place with digital 
  signatures: the current implementors have decided on JSON-LD and 
  LD signatures, but the JWT community have pushed back.
  … The concern is that we were being blocked before, and was a 
  no-go from W3M. It would seem that W3C is stomping on the IETF 
  territory.
  … That said, you’re points are spot-on. I think it will happen 
  anyway; it wasn’t on the agenda today, but we’re talking about it 
  anyway.
Matt Stone:  At a minimum, we’ll deliever what’s in the charter. 
  As we go into that, this will be part of the implementation. It 
  seems it will be at the table one way or another, even if the 
  spec covers it.
  … JWT group can complain, but if it’s in the field that’s the 
  effective standard.
Christopher Allen:  Prove we can do it with JWT and demonstrate 
  it, then I’ll be glad to consider it.
Matt Stone: +1 On put up or shut up...
Manu Sporny:  To put a pin in this, I’m not too concerned that 
  we’ll get to the end of the WG and not know about how to do this. 
  Both Christopher and Matt are right: put up or shut up, and look 
  at implementation experience.
Matt Stone:  Is this, in fact the JSON/JSON-LD discussion?
Gregg Kellogg:  If the group thinks this will be part of hte 
  process later, particularly in the test suite we HAVE to have 
  room in the charter now to include it later [scribe assist by 
  Matt Stone]
Matt Stone:  We’ll need to come back to this when we review the 
  charter. There may be a honeymoon period were we can address 
  this.
  … Do we want to add uncertainty?
Manu Sporny: Text in the charter right now: "Signature 
  Mechanism(s): that are capable of protecting the verifiable 
  claims from attack such that the claims can be trusted by 
  consumers of those claims."
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Drummond Reed: That's a good, concise summary of the requirement.
Manu Sporny:  I think we’re in the clear, but we can’t invent a 
  new format; however, we can recommend something that exists in 
  the field.
  … The WG can then point to something that exists and say “do 
  that”!

Topic: Use of JSON/JSON-LD in spec

Manu Sporny: https://github.com/opencreds/vc-data-model/issues/27
John Tibbetts:  The spec has a section on JSON and another on 
  JSON-LD, and they’re identical, except for @context. This happens 
  in several different sections.
  … It seems to me we should _only_ specify the JSON-LD approach, 
  rather than side-by-side. With language saying that it is 
  completely valid JSON.
  … People worry that they’ll get lost in the -LD parts, but it’s 
  really not an issue practically. We can discuss differences in an 
  appendix.
  … People look at this, and only think of it in terms of JSON, 
  the @context is just template. You really don’t need to worry 
  about the -LD parts for most practical uses.
  … Some people do need to worry about this, if you’re creating a 
  signature algorithm, or designing the basic structure, but if 
  you’re just consuming, you rarely need to know about this.
  … What I’m suggesting is that we just talk about JSON in the 
  sense that it’s constrained to work as -LD.
David Ezell:  I just got back from ISO in Paris, where there’s a 
  move to go from XML to JSON.
  … One of the ideas is using HATEOS.
  … To me, it doesn’t seem much different than JSON-LD, other 
  than syntax.
  … I think it’s going to be important to come up with JSON in 
  the payments space.
Christopher Allen: 
  https://jeffknupp.com/blog/2014/06/03/why-i-hate-hateoas/
Manu Sporny: Example of a stronger stance on usage of JSON-LD: 
  https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/
Manu Sporny:  There are other groups having the same discussion, 
  and have ended up in two different places. The Web Annotations 
  group came up with a strong stance on the use of JSON-LD.
  … There was a big disagreement in the Activity Streams group.
Manu Sporny: Social Web WG comments on use of JSON-LD: 
  https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/#syntaxconventions
  … The social web group did something that might meet both 
  requirements. The data format is JSON, but  you need to be able 
  to interpret it as JSON-LD, which allows it to be machine 
  readable, and allows people that just want JSON
Matt Stone: 2Min time check...
Christopher Allen:  I’m sympathetic to just pulling out that 
  part, and have a different document for C14N. But, my experience 
  trying to do DiD where it was pointed out the JSON we were 
  specifying would have a problem with the graph model, and how it 
  could be simply modified to do this.
  … Without saying graph-model, can we put enough constraint to 
  make sure we don’t break it.
Manu Sporny:  Short answer, right now, we don’t know what those 
  constraints might be.
John Tibbetts: Had to drop off for another call
  … You’re either saying tree-model or graph-model. By default 
  JSON is tree-model. We don’t know how to convey these constraints 
  right now.
Drummond Reed: +1 To RDF graph model constraints feeling strange 
  to most JSON developers
Drummond Reed: But they may be necessary

Received on Tuesday, 6 December 2016 17:34:24 UTC