Re: Verifiable Claims Telecon Minutes for 2016-11-29

On 11/29/16 9:32 AM, msporny@digitalbazaar.com wrote:
> Thanks to Manu Sporny for scribing this week! The minutes for this
>  week's Verifiable Claims telecon are now available:
>
...
> Shane McCarron: Here are some dpub use cases:
> http://w3c.github.io/dpub-pwp-ucr/index.html

I'd like to note that after scanning through the above link to "Web
Publications..." that even though there are, it's true, many rich
use-cases, the large majority of the effort in the document is for the
benefit of large publishing entities. Perhaps that's not surprising,
since an Adobe employee is one of the Editors.

For example, the first set of usage cases given in section 2.1.1, concern
only three:
    •" A large, multidisciplinary, Web-based journal...
    • " Educational publications...
    • " BigBoxCo, a large technology company with extensive “in-house”
documentation... "

This quote from section 3.2 is representative:

"Req. 19: The distribution of Packaged Web Publications should respect
the existing processes and expectations of professional publishing
channels as well as ad-hoc methods of distribution (eg. email). "

There is little mention of Authors, and no mention of needing to trust
them.

In terms of Verifiable Claims, they give only a single use
case under "3.5.2 Authenticity—Origin of a Publication", for a Lawyer
needing to trust "LegalPublisher Ltd."

I think that's because their focus, appropriately enough since it's
titled "Web Publications Use Cases and Requirements", is on
Publishers. And in the corporate silo publishers' model, you trust the
silo (whether it is Fox News or Penguin Books or the Guardian).

But if Authors can be Verified and distributed individually through
the Internet, and paid for their work, to what extent will
traditional, as the above document puts it, "existing processes and
expectations of professional publishing channels" be necessary?
Nobody knows.  :-)

Steven Rowat

Received on Tuesday, 29 November 2016 20:18:42 UTC