Re: Status Update on Multiformats at IETF

On Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 6:30 PM Orie Steele <orie@transmute.industries> wrote:
> How are we ensuring that the work at IETF will be stable enough for the W3C to continue to reference.

The current usage of multibase and multicodec in the Data Integrity
specifications is quite small. Specifically, we use two multibase
prefixes "z" and "u", and a handful of multicodec entries for ECDSA
and Ed25519 public keys. We currently state those values explicitly in
the specifications and that is all we need in order for the
specifications to be implementable.

To put it another way, we don't have a blocking dependency on the
Multiformats work progressing at IETF on the same timeline that VCWG
is on. This has always been the case. Yes, it would be nice if the
IETF work was ready for us to reference in the VCWG work, but that is
not going to block the VCWG from being able to get to REC w/ our
specifications.

At present, we're going through all the feedback that we got at IETF
116 and responding to commenters on the IETF Multiformats mailing
list. We are then cleared, per the discussion at IETF 116, to spin up
a quick WG to publish the Multibase and Multihash specifications and
establish the registries at IETF.

If folks want to help in that process, having a chat with Murray (or
other ADs that were involved in the discussion at IETF 116) during the
upcoming IETF on what processes are needed to spin the WG up is what's
needed next. NOTE: It was already approved to go to a WG at the last
dispatch and there was talk of a "fast process" to get it set up if
the community wanted it (which it seems to want to do), so the next
step is to find out exactly what this "fast process" is, get that
kicked off, and get the WG operational.

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
https://www.digitalbazaar.com/

Received on Sunday, 2 July 2023 11:44:44 UTC