Re: Report on DIDs from W3C TPAC 2017 (was: Re: [AGENDA] W3C Credentials CG Call Tue, November 14th 12 ET)

Manu, I too might end out with a conflict for tomorrow's W3C Credentials
Community Group meeting (Evernym has a mgmt summit meeting this week), but
I'm going to try to make at least part of it.

In any case, +1 to your report on DIDs here. I think you did a terrific job
presenting and answering questions about them, and I too was quite
surprised at how reception the W3C members were—even some of the "old
guard". Tim Berners-Lee especially struck me as more open and interested
that I expected.

So there's a still a long road to go, but I'm optimistic, and more eager
than ever to push it forward quickly.

My only disappointment, as I told Kim and Christopher, was that we didn't
get more time at TPAC to actually talk about the DID spec open issues and
the hardening proposal. But we'll get back to that work now that TPAC is
over.

Kim and Christopher, I'm hoping we can get at least a few mins to talk
about next steps with the DID spec, and holding some dedicated "DID spec
closure calls", near the start of tomorrow's call (if I'm able to attend,
it will likely only be for the first 15-20 mins).

=Drummond

On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 6:57 AM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> On 11/12/2017 12:07 AM, Christopher Allen wrote:
> > TL;DR: Update and catch up everyone on current DID thoughts
>
> (bcc: VCWG and DVCG)
>
> A number of us have a conflict for the CCG call tomorrow, but I wanted
> to provide a brief report out from the W3C Technical Plenary 2017 on
> Decentralized Identifiers.
>
> We led a breakout session on the Self Sovereign Web on Wednesday[1] at
> 11am PT (picture attached). It was very well attended, you expect around
> 15-20 people at these sorts of things... we had a total of 45 people
> throughout the hour including folks from Apple, Google, IBM, Deutsche
> Telekom, AirBnB, UK Government, BBC, and W3C staff among many others.
> Strong interest. Minutes available publicly[2].
>
> While the break out was about how Web Payments, Verifiable Claims, DIDs,
> and the Credential Handler API come together to create a web where we
> (the people that use the Web) have more control, the discussion focused
> mainly on DIDs.
>
> I also gave a lightning talk at the W3C Advisory Committee (AC) meeting.
> The AC are the 460+ people that have voting power for their
> organizations at W3C, around 250+ were in the room. The presentation
> still needs work, but the AC seemed to get the general point. Minutes
> available for W3C Members only[3]. While I can't go into any specifics
> in that particular meeting, I can say that there was overwhelming
> support in bringing DIDs into W3C from the people that are responsible
> for Web Architecture (the W3C Technical Architecture Group).
>
> Separately, I spoke with Tim Berners-Lee about our work and he was very
> supportive on getting broader review and moving the work into W3C if it
> was a good fit (which it is, since we're talking about a new type of URL
> that the Web could use).
>
> What we didn't know before W3C TPAC 2017 was whether or not the
> membership would reject DIDs. We now know that there is strong interest
> in doing a thorough review with the expectation that if the reviews from
> the TAG go well, we'll be well positioned to do the work at W3C.
>
> Our next steps with the DID spec seem to be (in order):
>
> 1. Update DID spec to latest post-RWoT and post-IIW versions.
> 2. Clean up and publish the DID Primer.
> 3. Create a DID Use Cases document.
> 4. Deploy at least one or more implementations that the W3C TAG and
>    others can look at.
> 5. Request TAG review of the DID primer, use cases, and spec.
> 6. If there is TAG support, draft a charter or include DIDs in an
>    existing WG rechartering.
>
> -- manu
>
> [1]
> https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1woq0pZD872NvhBIu90GIZMf8MQLWC
> tXM1NCx8n6s0VM/edit?usp=sharing
> [2] https://www.w3.org/2017/11/10-ssweb-minutes.html
> [3] https://www.w3.org/2017/11/09-ac-minutes.html#item06
> [4] https://www.w3.org/2017/11/09-ac-minutes.html#item07
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: The State of W3C Web Payments in 2017
> http://manu.sporny.org/2017/w3c-web-payments/
>