Re: A Quick Note on WebID history - Re: All the Agents Challenge (ATAC) at ISWC 2021

On Tue, 27 Jul 2021 at 04:22, Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@openlinksw.com>
wrote:

> On 7/26/21 1:08 PM, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mon, 26 Jul 2021 at 18:27, Ted Thibodeau Jr <tthibodeau@openlinksw.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jul 26, 2021, at 02:34 AM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Ah, I see the issue here
>>
>> The current WebID spec is in fact tightly coupled to Turtle (and http)
>> via "MUST"
>>
>> https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/spec/identity/
>>
>>
>> Those who fail to read the "Status of This Document" are
>> doomed to pain and agony all the days of their implementation.
>>
>> To wit:
>>
>> This document is produced from work by the W3C WebID Community Group
>> <http://www.w3.org/community/webid/>. This is an internal draft document
>> and may not even end up being officially published. It may also be updated,
>> replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate
>> to cite this document as other than work in progress. The source code for
>> this document is available at the following URI:
>> https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/WebID
>>
>> This document was published by the WebID CG
>> <http://www.w3.org/community/webid/> as an Editor's Draft. If you wish
>> to make comments regarding this document, please send them to
>> public-webid@w3.org (subscribe
>> <public-webid-request@w3.org?subject=subscribe>, archives
>> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webid/>). All comments are
>> welcome.
>>
>> Publication as an Editor's Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership.
>> This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other
>> documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other
>> than work in progress.
>>
>> In other words: This is not a spec, current or otherwise.
>>
>> It is very much an Editor's Draft, coming from the discussions
>> of what was then an Incubator Group, and transformed into a
>> Community Group, but really reflecting the opinions of the
>> Chair who was doing double-duty as Editor, much more than of
>> the group as a whole.
>>
>> It does not come close to reflecting consensus of that old XG
>> (of which I was a member), never mind transition to a Candidate
>> Recommendation, and further progress down the REC-track was
>> likewise years away, as there was never a WebID Working Group.
>>
>> In my opinion, it should never have received the Respec skin
>> it has, which makes it *look* like something it isn't, and
>> at a minimum, W3C should find a way to put the watermarks
>> now in common use on draft specs in the github.io space onto
>> all the old draft specs that will otherwise continue to draw
>> people into thinking that output of one person's keyboard
>> have the same weight as the work product of several if not
>> dozens of people intellectual and technical efforts.
>>
>
> Good points.  I guess it was last updated over 7 years ago and both of the
> editors are no longer active
>
> And a lot has changed in that time!
>
>
>
> Yes, but it was never a spec endorsed by the W3C.
>
> Today, it still isn't a spec endorsed by the W3C.
>
> All we have in reality is "WebID" as a colloquialism for an HTTP
> Identifier that denotes an Agent, and is generally conflated with a
> protocol for credential verification that goes by the moniker "WebID-TLS" .
>

Makes sense.  Tho WebID still is in use by some of the RDF folks, and I
think they would argue that RDF/Turtle is mandated.  In time that may
change, but in years probably, given the run rate


> I am betting on verifiable credentials working via an emergent de facto
> protocol that's adopted en masse by developers at some point. However we
> get there, the following constants will be in play:
>
> 1. Logic as the Conceptual Schema
>
> 2. Resolvable Identifiers
>
> 3. Credentials that manifest as an Entity Relationship Graph comprising
> Resolvable Identifiers
>
> 4. Credential verification protocol
>

I think what we need is JSON Objects, denoting an Agent, that can
optionally have a URI.

If it has an abstract model that's fine also, which allows middleware
solutions, and you can put it in a data store, including redis, mongo,
browser stores, virtuoso, quad stores etc.

Add an attribute for fingerprint or public key or delegate.  This should be
a single field, rather than more granular terms like modulus/exponent etc.
which was never completed

Put the fingerprint / key / provider in the doc for proof.  Perhaps
fingerprint should be preferred here. (even ni:/// hashes)

And the same JSON object can be used to create a friend graph, chat,
signatures, and all sorts of other social functionality, not just auth --
this is where we create the real facebook alternative

Align this with real world usage, including fediverse, VCs, but with clean
separation of Objects and Documents, following from REST like principles

ie its really what people are already doing today, so it might not need a
name as such.  But a name and a documentation could help.  Perhaps your
NetID or YouID would be a good code name

I guess what's more important is the documentation and examples.  It's a
bit scattered around on chats, mail lists, blog posts.

Maybe an idea would be to use our wiki to write down some docs and

I looked in our wiki for a page on Identity but couldnt find one.  Perhaps
we could start one or ...

It turns out we have an ancient draft spec for the read write web here;

https://www.w3.org/community/rww/wiki/Draft_Spec#Identity

Which includes an identity section

Maybe it might be a good place to note down ideas from these conversations,
based on what we've learnt over time -- as it's a wiki feel free to dive in
-- and perhaps I can do some modernization work ...


> --
> Regards,
>
> Kingsley Idehen 
> Founder & CEO
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Received on Tuesday, 27 July 2021 09:54:00 UTC