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

Nb: the Web-ID concept (as is distinct to a URI based agent representing,
more specifically, a non natural legal human being); never really dealt
with the concept of agent to agent dynamic semantics very well.  At least
not in the documentation.

So much 'politics' involved...

Nonetheless; an interpretation (that may well end up being credited to
whomever) is that a WebID is a semantic thoughts are endpoint for human
actors & their associative things (company roles, IoT (or web of things
WoT), software agents, etc.

I guess the easiest way to make the point clear is that a WebID could be a
sparql (or sadly (?) perhaps also, graphql) endpoint.

Future is what we make it.  I guess the biggest lesson over my time of
being involved in this global BS; is that although there's billions of
human stakeholders, let alone our biosphere stakeholders,

Very few thinkers as may be temporally shown to have lit a path towards
"good"...

The hashtag I use is #RealityCheckTech. Kinda important for democracies,
freedom from tyranny, etc.  Worthy (akin to worshipful persons) of more
appropriately defined investment; than I can illustrate, historically.
Links welcomed.


Timothy Holborn
(Very tired, emotionally).

On Tue, 27 Jul 2021, 7:54 pm Melvin Carvalho, <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> 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
>> OpenLink Software
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>>
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>>
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>>
>> Web Identities (WebID):
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>>         : http://id.myopenlink.net/DAV/home/KingsleyUyiIdehen/Public/kingsley.ttl#this
>>
>>

Received on Tuesday, 27 July 2021 11:11:13 UTC