Re: Renaming "DID registry" to "DID ledger" (was: Re: New iteration of the DID Use Cases document)

I'm fine with discussing this at Rebooting.

On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 4:45 PM Kim Hamilton Duffy <kim@learningmachine.com>
wrote:

> tl;dr discussion not votes (yet)
>
> I should clarify -- I meant we should *discuss* now, but not actually
> call for a vote at the moment. I confirmed with another chair we are not
> ready, and in fact adding any more potential hurdles (no matter how small)
> to the use case document (which *is* urgent) is not desirable.
>
> We'll be able to follow up under calmer circumstances at Rebooting, which
> is not too far in the future. For those who can't attend, this mailing list
> discussion would be helpful to unearth ideas (until then).
>
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 3:50 PM Jordan, John CITZ:EX <
> John.Jordan@gov.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>> +1
>>
>> On Feb 18, 2019, at 15:40, =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@evernym.com
>> <mailto:drummond.reed@evernym.com>> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 3:30 PM Kim Hamilton Duffy <
>> kim@learningmachine.com<mailto:kim@learningmachine.com>> wrote:
>> > So I strongly believe that the sooner we fix this naming issue, the
>> sooner we stop sending the wrong message to potential adopters about how
>> DIDs actually work.
>>
>> I definitely agree sooner is better...if people are down for this
>> exercise right now, I'm not stopping anyone
>>
>> Cool. All in favor of moving from "DID registry" to "DID ledger", please
>> +1.
>>
>> If you strongly feel you have a better alternative, please advance that.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 3:26 PM =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@evernym.com
>> <mailto:drummond.reed@evernym.com>> wrote:
>> Kim, while I agree that it would be good to avoid a naming exercise right
>> now, in fact a term was recently suggested to me that IMHO would be
>> infinitely better than "DID registry". It is simply "DID ledger".
>>
>> Note that the term "DID ledger" does not say "distributed ledger" or
>> "blockchain" or anything that would imply that DID technology could only be
>> written to one of those types of systems. In fact, "DID ledger" doesn't
>> even mean that the ledger is decentralized.
>>
>> What "DID ledger" DOES capture however is the idea that the DID
>> controller writes the DID to the ledger. In all cases with DIDs, that's
>> what happens (whether the DID is actually initially created entirely
>> independent of the ledger, as with Sovrin DIDs, or it is created via the
>> write transaction to the ledger, as with BTCR DIDs).
>>
>> And that of course is exactly the OPPOSITE of what happens with
>> "registries". The essence of the problem with the word "registry" is that
>> it is always the registry that controls the rights to the identifier, not
>> the registrant.
>>
>> So I strongly believe that the sooner we fix this naming issue, the
>> sooner we stop sending the wrong message to potential adopters about how
>> DIDs actually work.
>>
>> =D
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 2:58 PM Kim Hamilton Duffy <
>> kim@learningmachine.com<mailto:kim@learningmachine.com>> wrote:
>> I'm not sure we'll get a better candidate in the near future, but ditto
>> on the problems caused by the use of the term "DID registry".
>>
>> In fact, after my presentation at W3C Strong Authentication and Identity
>> Workshop, I decided not to use that term unless I have ample time to
>> qualify/caveat what it means.
>>
>> At minimum, if we just mark it (perhaps create an issue) to revisit, that
>> would probably be fine. Not sure we're in the mood for a naming exercise at
>> the moment.
>>
>> But also +1 to the improvements in this use case document. Great job Joe!
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 16, 2019 at 8:37 PM =Drummond Reed <drummond.reed@evernym.com
>> <mailto:drummond.reed@evernym.com>> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 8:01 AM Joe Andrieu <joe@legreq.com<mailto:
>> joe@legreq.com>> wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> Based on the feedback from the call Tuesday, I have updated the DID Use
>> Cases document.
>>
>> https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-use-cases/
>>
>> Please take a look and provide feedback. Please use the mailing list for
>> general discussion and Github issues for specific places where the  spec
>> text could use improvement. Pull requests appreciated if you have
>> suggestions for improvements.
>>
>> Joe, this is a big improvement. Thanks for doing this. I have some
>> wording suggestions but unfortunately will probably not have time until
>> RWOT to submit them, and they are minor anyway.
>>
>> One terminology question, however: this is the first doc I've seen using
>> the term "DID registry". While I get why that term seems attractive—it's
>> the best analogy to the existing world of registries (especially DNS
>> registries), I have avoided it all this time because the process of writing
>> a DID to what the spec used to call a "target system" is SO different than
>> conventional registries which ALWAYS involve centralization. This is true
>> for every single target system I'm aware of. That's the whole point of
>> decentralized systems—they don't involve the same power dynamics as
>> centralized registries.
>>
>> So I'm just wondering if the term "DID registries" has become established
>> or if we can use a better term that reflects the unique nature of DIDs.
>>
>>
>> The key difference in this iteration is the addition of an extended
>> discussion of what you can do with a DID and the 13 DID actions I've
>> distilled from our conversations over the last couple of years. Hopefully
>> this addition helps both with the big picture and gives concrete
>> functionality.
>>
>> Note that not all DID Actions are supported by all methods and not all
>> will be specified in the DID spec. However, these actions have informed the
>> design of DIDs and hence represent the aspirations of the eventual system
>> based on DIDs.
>>
>> Agreed. I like the section on DID Actions very much, though I do have a
>> few suggestions to clarify some of them. I'll see if I can get that to you
>> before RWOT.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Kim Hamilton Duffy
>> CTO & Principal Architect Learning Machine
>> Co-chair W3C Credentials Community Group
>>
>> kim@learningmachine.com<mailto:kim@learningmachine.com>
>>
>> --
>> Kim Hamilton Duffy
>> CTO & Principal Architect Learning Machine
>> Co-chair W3C Credentials Community Group
>>
>> kim@learningmachine.com<mailto:kim@learningmachine.com>
>>
> --
> Kim Hamilton Duffy
> CTO & Principal Architect Learning Machine
> Co-chair W3C Credentials Community Group
>
> kim@learningmachine.com
>

Received on Tuesday, 19 February 2019 00:51:19 UTC