Re: Requirements for PDF as container for VC's

Good point – it doesn’t actually have to be JSON-LD.   The mechanism that I am thinking of will support any serialization – definitely worth calling out.

Yes, compatibility with 1.7 implies other versions – but since 1.7 is (a) the first ISO version and (b) been around for over a decade, there isn’t any reason to be using earlier versions.

Leonard

From: Kostas Karasavvas <kkarasavvas@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, November 8, 2020 at 4:17 AM
To: Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com>
Cc: "public-credentials@w3.org" <public-credentials@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Requirements for PDF as container for VC's

Hi Leonard,

Thanks for initiating this. I have been thinking of this as well.

On Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 3:23 AM Leonard Rosenthol <lrosenth@adobe.com<mailto:lrosenth@adobe.com>> wrote:
Kicking off some discussions here – I’d like to start by putting down what I think are some “primary” requirements for the use of PDF in this context.  Am I missing anything?  Do you disagree with any of these?   Feedback welcome!!

## Requirements

- Shall store the VC in native JSON-LD (w/optional compression)
- VC should be in an easily accessible location (for both reading & writing)

Agree. And JSON-LD is what we intend to use. There could also be a 'serialization/type' option to specify the serialization to accommodate other use cases (XML? CBOR-LD?), if need be.

- Should require no language changes to PDF (except "metadata"-like values)
    - implies compatibility with both PDF 1.7 and 2.0

Agree. I assume that PDF 1.7 implies compatibility with older versions as well?

- Shall be usable in conjunction with standard PDF Signing/Certification

Makes sense. I have questions here wrt the PDF spec and how signing is happening (the 'hole' in the file approach) but these are for later.

Regards,
Kostas



Leonard


--
Konstantinos A. Karasavvas
Software Architect, Blockchain Engineer, Researcher, Educator
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