- From: Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2017 21:23:26 +0100
- To: "=Drummond Reed" <drummond.reed@evernym.com>
- Cc: Credentials Community Group <public-credentials@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <CAKaEYhJRO-MwE8yOUHmq-ZVGfrHCMFi4V=euudL4Ao_ta-TxaA@mail.gmail.com>
On 13 December 2017 at 19:38, =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@evernym.com> wrote: > The Credentials Community Group has been holding a special set of calls to > drive towards closure of a next "Implementer’s Draft" of the DID spec > <https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-spec/>. Three calls have been held so far, > and two more are currently planned (this Thursday and next Thursday at > 10AM Pacific Time—see a separate message sent to the list for details of > each call). > > After the last call, I started to see that some of the major sticking > points are due to what I call "worldview conflicts". These are > disagreements that usually surface as differences about details of a spec, > but where the real causes are rooted in different worldviews about > technology—different "big pictures" that different spec contributors are > working from/towards. > > When this is the case, arguments that can go on for days/weeks/months > about the details can often be solved much faster by identifying and > dealing with the differences in the underlying worldviews. > > So I wanted to start a thread just for discussion of these worldview > conflicts. I'll start by taking a stab at articulating the worldviews as > I understand them: > > *THE RDF/JSON-LD WORLDVIEW* > > In this worldview, DID documents are a standard way to describe a > well-known subgraph of a potentially very large RDF graph of data about a > subject. To quote this message from Dave Longley on a github DID issues > thread > <https://github.com/w3c-ccg/did-spec/pull/36#issuecomment-351128922>: > "a DID document, is about establishing an independent entity and being able > to authenticate that certain activities/actions were performed by that > entity -- and to interact with that entity via services. This necessarily > includes specifying how that DID document can be changed." Linked Data > Signatures are also important in this worldview since it is the standard > way to sign JSON-LD documents. > > *THE AGENT WORLDVIEW* > > In this worldview, DID documents are about having an open, interoperable > way to discover and manage the cryptographic keys and service endpoints > necessary to bootstrap secure, verifiable connections, claims, and > interactions between agents acting on behalf of DID subjects. > > *OBSERVATIONS* > > First, obviously neither worldview is "wrong". They are just different > perspectives about the primary purpose of DID documents and the universes > into which they fit. > > Second, in the RDF/JSON-LD worldview it is important to describe the data > using an RDF graph model using an ontology that can live alongside other > ontologies. In the agent worldview the primary importance is on > interoperability; it is not "anti-RDF", but it wants to avoid a dependence > on RDF in order to make it easy to consume/transform the metadata carried > by DID documents into other graph models and formats. > > Thirdly, the two have different views of key management. In the > RDF/JSON-LD worldview the importance is on being able to authenticate an > interaction with the DID subject. In the agent worldview, a DID document is > the "public-face" (or "non-private-face") of all types of key management, > i.e., it is how a DID subject shares any type of key that needs to be > shared with another party to verify interactions, decrypt communications, > or do additional key negotiation. > The agent world view was quite a long sentence. Could it be perhaps rephrased or broken into more than one sentence. > > *QUESTIONS* > > First, it would be good to get feedback on these worldview descriptions > and observations from those who hold them. In other words, are the > descriptions accurate? Do the observations about them follow? Are there > other important points that are missing? > > Secondly, once we have a picture of the differences in the worldviews, > what solutions to DID issues can we come up with that help reconcile these > differences and ideally work for both worldviews? >
Received on Wednesday, 13 December 2017 20:23:49 UTC