Re: The German Government slams JSON-LD

I think the article conflates the idea of being clear about what you mean with varying technology implementations.  What EUDI calls rulebooks, UNTP calls conformity vocabularies. See https://untp.unece.org/docs/specification/ConformityVocabularyCatalog (note - significant update to this page coming in a week or so).  The key thing to understand is that the semantic meaning challenge is not about the little vocabulary that UNTP itself defines (properties of DPPs etc) but the much larger set of regulations, standards, and conformity schemes that exist and are the reference for product and facility performance claims and assessments.  These are not controlled by UNTP and collectively represent a distributed vocabulary 1000 times the size of the core UNTP vocabulary. 

So the UNTP CVC is essentially a catalog of rulebooks together with a standard way of publishing a rulebook. And this architecture would be largely unchanged whether CVC scheme vocabularies and UNTP credentials that reference them are JSON, JSON-LD, XML, or any other syntax.

 json-LD is a nice way to link meaning.  But The more important thing is that the 1000’s of regulations, conformity schemes, international conventions, etc, publish their “rulebooks” in a digitally referenceable way, not only as a big PDF containing 100’s of rules and stored at a url that could change any moment 

So I think we should stop arguing about technical syntax and start campaigning for authoritative meaning being anchored to stable URLs 

Steven Capell
UN/CEFACT Vice-Chair 
Mob: +61 410 437854

> On 28 Feb 2026, at 1:02 am, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 8:34 AM Lluís Alfons Ariño Martín
> <lluisalfons.arino@urv.cat> wrote:
>> But it is wrong that SD-JWT VC provides unlinkability. Wrong that JSON Schema can express what @context expresses. Wrong that @context is heavy semantic-web processing inside wallets. Wrong that BBS has been killed by regulation. And wrong that the choice is between JSON-LD inside credentials and semantics in rulebooks - because @context is the bridge between the two, not an alternative to either.
> 
> Lluís, that was a masterful response! You hit all the right points and
> are, as far as I can tell, correct on all of them. Is there any chance
> you could publish your response online somewhere, we should boost your
> response as it effectively combats the misinformation. Same for your
> post, Carsten, can we get it at a permanent link?
> 
> Carsten, thank you for pointing out that the EU, and even the "German
> government", do use the very technologies that SPRIN-D employees are
> arguing against.
> 
> It is frustrating that we keep having to push back on this
> misinformation from SPRIN-D employees and OpenID Foundation members;
> it's been going on for a while now, and it's really getting out of
> hand. I continue to try to believe that it's not intentional, but the
> fact that we've communicated these exact points to both SPRIN-D and
> OpenID Foundation members multiple times over many years makes it
> difficult to keep the faith.
> 
> The reality is that even though these "personal" blog posts and
> communication from SPRIN-D employees cannot represent the German
> government's views, they are absolutely being interpreted as such by
> other government personnel. I do participate in US government agency
> meetings and I can assure you that posts like the one that Lluís so
> eloquently dismantled are being interpreted as the German government,
> and the EU/EC's position.
> 
> That will not change until folks within the EU start pushing back on
> the rhetoric, like Lluís and Carsten are doing, in a public way that
> the rest of us can point to as counter-arguments that are coming from
> within the EU.
> 
> -- manu
> 
> --
> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>

Received on Friday, 27 February 2026 22:43:35 UTC