Re: New proposal for the DID WG charter

On Thu, Nov 2, 2023 at 3:29 AM Jeffrey Yasskin <jyasskin@google.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 4:22 PM Ryan Grant <w3c@rgrant.org> wrote:
>> What's your response to the problem that picking winners and losers
>> directly diminishes the decentralization of the protocol?
>
> Standardizing some methods doesn't pick winners.

Unfortunately, your argument is based on an equivocation between
standardization here and standardization elsewhere.

I simply refuse to allow **this WG** to pretend that it could ever
have consensus on what DID Methods to standardize.  So I would agree
with you that standardizing some methods (in some **other WG** or
standards body) doesn't pick winners.

This WG picking winners and losers for standardization would directly
diminish the decentralization of the protocol because it would present
the WG's efforts as coming to a centralized decision about which DID
Methods were preferred for standardization.

> Look at the initial set of standardized URL schemes: ftp, http,
> gopher, mailto, news, nntp, telnet, wais, file, and prospero.  There
> were certainly some in that set that won, but more of them lost a
> long time ago.

Yeah, let's look at that list but look at the underlying protocols.
They all have different people who edited and authored them over a
span of time larger than a decade.  They didn't try to force an
impossible consensus between each other's goals.  The result was good
for innovation.

> Failing to standardize (and markets, for that matter) can also cause
> centralization: Say Google hands out DIDs with gmail, and then oops
> their method turns out to be patented so nobody else can implement
> it.

That wrongs can occur another way does not excuse promoting this
wrong.

> I worry that _partial_ standardization is the easiest way to this
> sort of centralization: one could sell to organizations saying
> "look, DID (core) is standardized", but part of the critical path is
> something only the seller controls.

What clever worries you have.  You are arguing that since the
inevitable "partial standardization" that must arise if different DID
Methods standardize at difference paces and in different places - as
fully foreseeable in the decentralized specification that Google
approved the initial charter of - is "the easiest way to this sort of
centralization" therefore decentralization should be stopped early.

Let me boil that down to its essence so you can hear your own words
back: you worry that decentralization is the easiest way to
centralization therefore we shouldn't even try for decentralization.

Well, I'm here trying!

> If the Resolution spec prevents that, I'm all ears.

No sub-specification supporting the Decentralized Identifier
specification will prevent decentralization.  None will prevent
the different DID Methods standardizing at their own pace and in
their own forums.

Picking winners and losers directly diminishes the
decentralization purpose of the working group's output.  It's in
the name.  Decentralization deserves respect as a core value of
the W3C:

  https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/#control

Received on Monday, 6 November 2023 04:55:09 UTC