Re: Identity Hubs and Agents

I actually stopped reading Daniel's message when he said *Hyperledger*
and *Normative
-* sorry about that. I think my reaction was mostly because I am interested
in the purity and utility of the spec, the elegance and readability of the
language and less so about third-party RFCs and Spec Applications. Only
after reading Christoper's and Joe's responses did I go back and reread it
all. I am relatively new to this particular group, and it is challenging
for me to know which persons, companies or identities that "we" refers to.
I totally get Christopher's point about communities, and I also know
firsthand how easy it is to slip into the "we" persona.

Now, while it could be argued (I won't) that drawing lines in the sand
about which words we use for the things we are talking about is
territorialist at best and preemptive marketing at worst, something that I
keep coming back to is that there is an intriguing dichotomy here:

1. We need words for concepts to help us envision things that don't yet
exist
2. These words don't change the intrinsic nature of imaginary things,
because they are at best the map, not the territory (which can't yet exist,
obviously).

As unfortunate as Daniel's phrasing might seem to some, I think that the
bigger picture here is that we're (as in the people in this email thread)
are talking about pattern discovery, and I would actually up the Ante on
Joe's metaphor:

We are a bunch of cooks in the same kitchen and we all speak different
languages and have our own techniques. Whether you call it Salz, Salt or
Sel - it's the same chemistry. I have actually had the privilege of working
in multilingual kitchens with some amazing sous chefs, and I know that a
knife is sharp, a fire is hot, skittles hold stuff. When I sprinkle baking
soda on onions in skittle simmering in a splash of lemon juice - it is
really magical, no matter which language you use to describe it or how you
plan to serve it. In fact, I don't even need to use words to show you. Just
basic principles need understanding, and by mere observation the process
can be repeated - or applied to shredded red cabbage or anything that needs
extremely rapid tenderization.


And from what I understand, this is why JSON-LD was originally built: to
Link Data from different schemas so that naming conventions just need to be
mapped and are interoperable. NEVERTHELESS, we do need methods to commune
about what we investigating, and to this end words and diagrams are
helpful. But I would really caution about making them too canonical too
soon, because this kind of linguistic imperialism can really sour the curd.
;)

Have a great Wednesday everybody,
Daniel Thompson-Yvetot