- From: Steven Rowat <steven_rowat@sunshine.net>
- Date: Sun, 19 Jun 2016 21:44:37 -0700
- To: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>, Credentials Community Group <public-credentials@w3.org>
On 6/19/16 5:43 PM, Manu Sporny wrote: > We don't have to revisit this anytime in the next month or so, but I'm > just raising this to see if anyone else felt this cognitive dissonance > when they saw the results of the poll. At first, like you, yes. But then, after a little while, I realized that it might be appropriate. If I understand the system. :-) Here's what I mean: we've more or less reached a consensus that "Identity" is amorphous and hard to pin down -- so much so that it's acceptable to have multiple 'identities' (or, formally now, "Identity Profiles"). These can be changed at will by an underlying Entity, who may want to have several of them. Entity, on the other hand, is referring to something that has permanence in time -- I'm an Entity, you're an Entity, Google is an Entity. The roles they can take change -- an Entity can be a Holder and/or an Issuer and/or a Subject -- but the 'Entity' itself is supposed to represent a real or virtual *single* object that has persistence. Thus, it might be good to have those two different words -- and we have them in the right places. The 'Identity' can change (as part of the changing Profiles, with a variable selection of Credentials). The Entity, in contrast doesn't change (the same Credentials are always defined relative to the same Entity). Steven
Received on Monday, 20 June 2016 04:45:20 UTC