Re: New proposal for the DID WG charter

Dear Jeffrey, all,

sorry for the delayed response.

On 02/11/2023 04:29, Jeffrey Yasskin wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 4:22 PM Ryan Grant <w3c@rgrant.org> wrote:
>
>     Hi Jeffrey,
>
>     I hear you repeating things that we've gone over many times.
>
>     In short, Ralph was wrong.
>
>     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. 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.
>
> 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. 
> 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.

The goal of the current charter proposal [1] is to avoid this "partial 
standarization" situation by requiring DID methods to exist (with open 
specifications) before DID Resolution can become a recommendation (see 
the Success Criteria section). As Markus pointed out [2], "quite a lot 
of DID methods are already being incubated in reputable organizations". 
So this group is confident that it can meet its success criteria without 
being itself responsible for specifying the DID methods and "pick winners".

Would that address your concern?

[1] 
https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/w3c/charter-drafts/did-wg-2023-team-proposal/2023/did-wg.html

[2] 
https://www.w3.org/mid/1c0fc599-6d27-4f67-b975-5a7ddbe60c3c@danubetech.com


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