[MINUTES] VCWG Spec Refinement 2025-10-16

Meeting Summary: VCWG Spec Refinement - 2025/10/16

*Topics Covered:*

   - *Meeting Logistics and Operating Mode:* Discussion of meeting
   procedures, use of auto-transcription, and the 7-day PR review period.
   - *FPWD Preparation:* Focused on the steps needed to prepare the
   "Verifiable Credential Render Method" and "Verifiable Credential Confidence
   Method" specifications for the First Public Working Draft (FPWD).
   - *Goals for Next Several Months:* Establishing goals to achieve
   Candidate Recommendation (CR) status for the specifications, including
   timelines and key considerations.
   - *Technical Discussions:* Discussed specific issues and decisions
   related to the specifications.

*Key Points:*

   - *FPWD Process:*
      - The FPWD will be prepared, and titles will be adjusted to use
      singular form for both the titles and short names of the specifications.
      - Publication date is targeted for October 30th, 2025.
      - Editors will prepare the FPWDs for the "Verifiable Credential
      Render Method" and "Verifiable Credential Confidence Method"
specifications.
   - *Goals for Next Several Months:*
      - The primary goal is to advance both specifications to Candidate
      Recommendation (CR) status as quickly as possible, ideally by the end of
      spring.
      - Focus on defining the scope and extension mechanisms for the
      specifications.
      - Engagement with wallet implementers and issuers is important.
   - *Upcoming Meetings:*
      - The next meeting will be held on the same day and time slot as the
      VCWG weekly meetings.
      - The meeting will be held every Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

Text:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-vcwg-spec-refinement-2025-10-16.md

HTML:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-vcwg-spec-refinement-2025-10-16.html

Video:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-vcwg-spec-refinement-2025-10-16.mp4
*VCWG Spec Refinement - 2025/10/16 09:56 EDT - Transcript* *Attendees*

Benjamin Young, Dave Longley, Dmitri Zagidulin, Ivan Herman, Joe Andrieu,
Kevin Dean, Manu Sporny, Phil Archer, Ted Thibodeau Jr, Will Abramson
*Transcript*

Phil Archer: Just for clarity, I believe this meeting is being led by Manu
particularly.

Phil Archer: I believe it's not being led by me. Is that right?

Manu Sporny: maybe it is technically led by the editors of the specs …

Manu Sporny: who are currently Joe Andrew and Dimmitri I can provide some
front matter I'm happy to run the call just because we're just organizing
ourselves But, I think in the future it would be the editors and then with
chair oversight. So, Phil,…

Phil Archer: Okay, I'll use my gavvel very lightly. Thanks.

Manu Sporny: I think you always have the gavl if you need to come in and
change a direction or remind people that we can't do certain things that
the group's talking about. That was my expectation. Okay. Appreciate that.
we'll get started in another minute.

Manu Sporny: we usually hold until four past the hour and then we get
started.

Manu Sporny: All right, let's go ahead and get started. There's a decent
chunk of us here. this is the, first, verifiable credential working group
specification refinement call. we have two specifications that the
verifiable credential working group has ad the verifiable credential render
method and the verifiable credential confidence method. these calls are
meant to refine those specifications so that we can move them through the
W3C standards track process. So that's the purpose of these calls.

Manu Sporny: I think the expectation is that run The editors of the specs
and really it's any editor of the spec can run the calls with the W3C BCWG
chairs u Brent and Phil and W3C staff Avon providing input, guidance and
whatever along the way. my recollection is that we don't make permanent
decisions in this group. We make preliminary ones. We raise PRs. we put
them through the PR process and ultimately if there is a decision or
resolution that is made in the verifiable credential working group. and I
think that as far as I understand it is our operating mode. we would have
discussions in this call.
00:05:00

Manu Sporny: We would update issues, we could discuss PRs, we can, even
merge PRs. but the idea here is that we discuss issues, refine PRs in this
call and then the ultimate decision on whether or not to publish documents
as candidate wreck or whatever is onto the working group. let me stop there
and see if my summary is accurate. Avon, I'll get into kind of meeting
times because that's another thing we need to discuss today. but at a high
level, does that operating mode sound right to everyone?

Phil Archer: Sounds right to me, man.

Ivan Herman: Yes, works for me.

Manu Sporny: Okay, great.

Manu Sporny: okay. Thumbs up from Demetri. the other expectation I have is
that we would let PRs sit for the standard 7-day period. So, we don't just
raise PRs and merge them immediately. unless the editors are convinced that
it's really a non controversial change. the typical work mode we have in
VCWG is 7 days. We let 7 days lapse until people have had enough time to
review it. we do not emerge things that don't have at least one other PR
from an independent voice in the group. And ideally we shoot for at least
two full reviews of a PR before we merge it after a 7-day waiting period.
does that also sound right to everyone?

Manu Sporny: Are there any objections to that work mode? Okay, seeing
thumbs ups. All with that, we do have an agenda today. organizing ourselves
in our work mode. We can talk about any details in that topic. we will also
identify additional editors for each spec. anyone that wants to edit is
more the marrier. we, probably need to establish some goals for the next
several months with these two specifications. and I think maybe today we
spend most of our time raising issues on the specifications, identifying
things we really need to kind of discuss and clarify.

Manu Sporny: talk about our timeline before we get the candidate
recommendation in many months from now. go ahead Phil

Phil Archer: Thanks just couple of things from my side. I was looking at
the GitHub issues that Ivan has kindly raised ready to get these documents
to go to first public work in draft which the group approved should happen
when we met last week. There are a couple of issues that need addressing.
I'm hoping the editors will be able to do that because that's kind of the
first thing to do on my list. And just in terms of what you're saying,
Manu, Brent and I met, I think it was yesterday, something certainly I'm
very keen that we do either during TAC or between now and then, but I think
be ready to do at TAC. is to put in the request for the horizontal reviews.
I pushed that for two reasons.

Phil Archer: the first one being that it kind of asks some awkward
questions and it makes you think of that? have we actually got this? And
that would I think expose any gaps that may exist in the existing work
which I know is substantial and very close to being done and I'm well aware
of that. But I think that highlights some of the process issues and also
then gives us all an idea of just how much work there is to do. Having got
to the state that these two documents have got to within their incubation
period, it's easy to think it's all done. Maybe That would be fantastic if
it is, but putting yourself through that ringer of kicking off the
horizontal review process has a habit of highlighting stuff. So that's kind
of where I would hope we can get to between now and TAC and certainly
during TAC. that's what I hope we can do. Thanks.

Manu Sporny: Yes, certainly. Plus one to all of that.

Ivan Herman: Yeah. …

Ivan Herman: a bit additional to what Phil said, I agree with what he said,
but I think, going through the first public working job should be a
priority. it makes our life easier if we are in the regular structure of
W3C with the draft. We can set up a kid now. we can get all the usual
things rolling. So I think we should really try to make the minimal changes
in the document that are necessary to put it through the first public draft
thing. Not going into technical issues right now because then we will
easily get delayed and get into the very enjoyable technical discussions
but we have to go through the boring admin to do that.
00:10:00

Ivan Herman: So minimal changes to the two documents. I have scanned
through them this afternoon. apart from the header changes and the
editorial things. As far as the first public working draft goes, I think
the document is ready. I think there are lots of things to be done for rec
track. But that's why we are here. But there is no need to go through
technical changes too much right now.

Ivan Herman: And indeed I don't know where I should put the pointer to the
request that I created. I put it in the message of I hope that's fine.

Manu Sporny: Yeah. All right.

Ivan Herman: And there are some specific questions that I need before I can
go there. I see that on the screen. So I need those things done to be able
to start the process once the documents are ready.

Manu Sporny: Plus one to all of that as well, Avon.

Manu Sporny: I think it would be good if we focused on FPWD first and then
we can get into kind of issues and other things like the technical stuff
after that. So I think that's an agenda modification which is totally fine
to kind of pick up the FPWD discussion first so we can get that going. then
plus one to trying to kick off horizontal review shortly after That will
require us to do some work. All right. let's see. let me cover one more
thing on our work mode. so the way this is set up is an experiment. We're
using Google Meet. we're using auto transcription. We're using video
recording.

Manu Sporny: and there's some benefits and drawbacks to that. The benefit
is that, our scribe is tireless. It's a robot. So, it will capture
absolutely every word it does it pretty well except when we use W3C
specific acronyms that it gets tripped up. there is also no such thing as
off the record. so please remember that if you say something, it will go
into the transcription and it takes an enormous amount of effort to try and
delete that. and in some cases, because publication is automated, this is a
fully automated publication. So at 6 p.m. Eastern, the bot will fire up and
it will send out a transcript and generate all the things.

Manu Sporny: So, there's a bit of a delay if for whatever reason somebody
says something that really needs to be struck from the record. but, we need
to know before 6 p.m. Eastern. and that's when all the bots take over and
send everything out. so what that means is that if you're running one of
these calls, all you need to do is show up and run the call. Everything
else is automated. the downside is the things I mentioned we also don't
have yet autolinking of issues into the GitHub tracker. So whoever is
running the call if you are processing an issue you need to go into GitHub
and you need to type out kind of the resolution that the group made.

Manu Sporny: That's a pretty, big negative with the new system, but Von and
I are going to try and fix that somehow. I think that's largely it for kind
of the recording infrastructure. any questions on any of that before we
move on to talking about FPWD?

Manu Sporny: Go ahead, Dave. It does not.

Dave Longley: Quick question is whether the Google chat still gets captured
in the minutes or…

Dave Longley: if it does not.
00:15:00

Manu Sporny: So if you want to say something off the record for now, say it
in the Google chat. but we are probably going to fix that in the next
couple of weeks to months so that the Google chat is also preserved.

Ivan Herman: maybe don't do that. It's good to have that

Manu Sporny: Yeah. Yeah. Potentially. Okay. something for us to discuss
offline, right?

Manu Sporny: we will have to figure out think through all those details.
but for now, yeah, if you want to share links, if you want to say something
off the record, the Google chat is one way to do that. but of course, you
have to also make sure that nobody else responds in voice to what you just
typed out. so it might be a bit weird. thats Any other questions, concerns
about call infrastructure?

Phil Archer: Is there a pause button?

Manu Sporny: No. Mhm.

Phil Archer: Is there? No, I'm just thinking because if you put a link in
the chat, that's really useful. But we do need a way to say something to
each other that isn't recorded. So maybe everything you're saying makes
sense here, but I think we kind of need a side channel somewhere. It could
be a Slack channel. It could be an IC channel. I don't care. But something
where we could potentially communicate in some way that wasn't recorded.

Phil Archer: Because knowing that everything you say, even a sides will
restrict some people more than that's one.

Manu Sporny: Yep. Yeah,…

Manu Sporny: I agree. it hasn't been an issue in the CCG calls for the last
couple of years. but again, I think people self censor and that can be
problematic as you mentioned, Phil. So, that's kind of where we are right
now and we'll continue to try and work on things to see if this experiment
is a positive one and if we want to keep going or if we want to go back to
the old way of meeting. all right. yeah, an IRC is a totally fine thing.
I've tried to look into the pause recording thing. I have not found a way
to pause Google Meet transcription and recording.

Manu Sporny: It's an on onoff thing and if you turn it off and turn it back
on then the bots get thoroughly confused because you have two transcripts.
they don't know how to stitch them together. all right let's talk about
FPWD.

Manu Sporny: Avon, do you want to take us through this issue?

Ivan Herman: Sure,…

Ivan Herman: but it's all there. you can open it if you want, but I had to
prepare essentially the issues that you No, that forget about this one.
Roll down. this is just administrative. So this one is the typical thing
that I have to fill to get a transition request. obviously I need the date
but the first thing is that the documents as they are now are labeled as
0.9 if I remember I presume that's fine for a CCG document. but I think it
should be 1.0

Ivan Herman: zero for both of them. And there is also a harmonization of
the title. The rendering one officially has the title verifiable credential
render method and the confidence method one doesn't have the verifiable
credentials. So in this submission I have already modified the title that I
propose to use and we will have to do that in the document as well. then
there are two other things which are important. If you go down IPR
commitment because this comes from CCG. I presume that the CCG has
conducted the usual thing of releasing the IPR if there is any.

Ivan Herman: The only thing I need is you can edit the PR monies to put
there the pointer to whatever you have. And the other thing is that the
submission requires information about implementations. That's just
information. There is no requirement for any number quality whatever
anything that you think makes the case. or both someone should put their
two or three lines of some typical implementations and from that point of
view that is all I need. Once the documents are ready to go and I take them
over and I do my thing then I can submit this to the management to approve
the transition. Nothing really dangerous and problematic I guess.
00:20:00

Manu Sporny: Yeah. bless one to all that, to answer your question about IPR
commitments, we did a final community group specification publication in
the CCG and we have received IPR releases from anyone that contributed any
amount of significant content to the specification. single. Yes.

Ivan Herman: You have some sort of a record of a call for IPR or…

Ivan Herman: something of that sort? Yeah.

Manu Sporny: Yeah, there's a link to IPR commitments through the community
group FCGS finalization report thingy.

Manu Sporny: So, yes, we can dump both of those links in here. and then on
top of it, the standard just general com, you are in a community group, IPR
commitments stand as well.

Manu Sporny: It's kind of like two layers of an onion, so we've got both of
those. We're in good shape, I think, from an IPR commitment standpoint.

Ivan Herman: No. Wait,…

Manu Sporny: And then the titles, we can update them. I was going to stay
away from version 10 my suggestion is we stay away from 10 until we're
actually where we are at 0.9. We next one would be 11,2 whatever.

Manu Sporny: Yes,…

Ivan Herman: wait. you want to change the title as we go along.

Manu Sporny: I think we can do that, can't we?

Ivan Herman: Nobody likes that. No, I mean,…

Manu Sporny: Okay. If okay,…

Ivan Herman: and I don't see any reason. Usually what we do with all the
specification we had before, this is a draft. Of course, it's a draft. So,
it can be 1.0. It will become a non-draft 1.0 zero eventually. I see no
reason why doing it that way. Honestly,

Manu Sporny: that's fine. A Phil, you have your hand up.

Phil Archer: Do we need a version number at all on these things?

Manu Sporny: It's required per pub rules.

Phil Archer: That's a change since I last looked. My apologies.

Manu Sporny: is so I again ub rules change pub process is changing so I
might have outdated information…

Phil Archer: I Sorry.

Manu Sporny: but I remember we got dinged for that on a spec and I ended up
putting them on all the specs I don't think it's enforced but it's Yep.

Phil Archer: Yeah, I thank Richard. Thanks, M. All right.

Manu Sporny: And again I looked six months ago so it might have changed
since then. yeah.

Ivan Herman: So one thing we don't want to change in any case is the short
name…

Ivan Herman: because that's always a problem. the question is whether you
want the version number in the short name. That's something that we will
have to define. But remember that any change of the short name can be done
I mean on the bing dropper can be done…

Ivan Herman: but it's a pain in the backside for the editors for the staff
contact and for the web master so we don't want to do

Manu Sporny: Yeah. …

Manu Sporny: yeah, plus one to that and I am going to be annoying and
pedantic. I am concerned about it's fine. We can go with these short names
and certainly not going to stand in the way. There is an issue talking
about the name of this spec. this spec is really about authentication not
necessarily about confidence methods and so it may be avon that we publish
as VC confidence method and…

Ivan Herman: But why don't we do it now?

Manu Sporny: then we might change to authentication I think Joe's got his
hand up to maybe say why we don't do it now go ahead

Manu Sporny: Okay,…

Joe Andrieu: Yeah, I disagree that it's about authentication.

Joe Andrieu: Authentication is about verifying that you're in some
identification architecture that can link you to an account or something
like that. But this is actually about identity assurance and having
confidence that the person on the other side of the credential is the
person. So it opens up the aperture significantly and I think calling out
authentication would be problematic.

Manu Sporny: that's fine. And I'm fine to, kind of kick that. There's
nuances there that I'd like the group to talk about. but Avon,…

Ivan Herman: then you will owe me something.

Manu Sporny: this is just a heads up that more than likely it's not going
to change, but if it does change, we know how to change it. it's a pain for
you. We apologize, but I just added to the very long list of things. So, I
just wanted to raise that.

Manu Sporny: The other thing I wanted to mention here and again this is
pedantic but these specifications contain multiple of these things. So
these are rendering methods plural because we have at least two of them in
that specification today and these are confidence methods plural because we
have I think three to four of them in the specification. So as long as
everyone's okay with that I think we should pluralize this.
00:25:00

Manu Sporny: And then there's a question on do we pluralize the short name?
I don't feel strongly one way or the other.

Ivan Herman: I don't care in a sense from my point of view.

Ivan Herman: Whatever you guys decide is fine.

Manu Sporny: Go ahead Dave. You're on the queue.

Dave Longley: And so I kind of see the specs as defining the baseline for
what a confidence method or a render method is. the fact that the spec
might have concrete examples who actually implement of that or for those
does I don't know that that means that the name of the spec should be
pluralized and it also seems to imply that if you don't have one that's in
the spec you can't extend the spec and…

Manu Sporny: Okay, looks like he's Avon here on the queue.

Dave Longley: do something and then eventually bring that to another spec.

Joe Andrieu: Sorry, meant I didn't mean to party. Just thumbs up.

Ivan Herman: Yeah, but I mean I looked at the render method document an
hour ago and…

Ivan Herman: I presume that it does define normatively several method.
though it is plural. So it's more than what you say Dave unless those that
are in the document are there for example only and they are not formally
standard that I can't see for that from the document.

Manu Sporny: All right.

Manu Sporny: Thanks, Savon. Phil, you're on the queue.

Phil Archer: As always,…

Phil Archer: I'm very conscious of being playing catch up with everybody
here. But if there are already multiple defined methods, but we think that
there may be a future one, I call that an extension mechanism.

Phil Archer: In other words, here are three or four we've done already. If
you want to define your own, then here's how you do it. And that would be
perfectly valid I would say.

Manu Sporny: Yeah, plus one to that.

Manu Sporny: I think we have consensus on that. but the ramification I
think is what Dave was kind of talking about. So, I think Dave is Sorry,
I'm jumping here. Go ahead, Dmitri.

Dmitri Zagidulin: No. not that important. Go ahead. I was just saying to me
the singular of the title reads just like the no plurals JSLD convention.

Manu Sporny: Dave.

Dmitri Zagidulin: It assumes multiple random methods. That's it.

Dave Longley: Yeah, I perhaps should not have used the word just examples.
that it seems to me that the title or the purpose of the spec is to It's
sort of genative define a class of things. We do define concrete instances
of the class in the spec in this version. And that's also been something
that's been requested for any of these things that any of these specs we
put out that we have at least one concrete version of it. But I don't think
that that means I wouldn't want the title to imply that this is the whole
set as opposed to this is the class or genative spec for these types of
things. and then here are some that we will have interop on when 1.0 My
nails done.

Manu Sporny: Okay, seeing a thumbs up from Avon. so let's say the proposal
here is we're going to use singular form in both the title and the short
name. Would anyone object to that? great. No objections. so that means I
think we're good to go for FPWD, meaning the title and…

Manu Sporny: the short name. what do we want the publication date to Noting
that. go ahead. Right.

Ivan Herman: First before we decide on the date we have to understand…

Ivan Herman: what has to be done with the documents themselves. I didn't
say that as they are today they are ready for first public working draft.

Manu Sporny: So let me kind of hi outline that. So what we have been doing
which seems to have been working fairly well over the last year or so is we
create a directory called transitions in each repository. We would create a
directory called fpwd all caps. sorry we'd create a year a directory like
2025 and then in there we would create an FPWD directory. So this is the
FPWD published in 2025. and then we would change the header information for
the s generate a static copy, HTM CSS link check it, make sure everything's
fine.
00:30:00

Manu Sporny: And then we would notify von that the document is ready to go.
So, typically it's the editors that do that work. an example is Are you
saying, can I put up an example?

Ivan Herman: Can you put up one of the documents?

Ivan Herman: No, no, no, no. Let's say the render method dropped as it is
today.

Manu Sporny: Yeah. Yes. Here it is.

Ivan Herman: So, first of all, it has to be renamed. And then I have to go
through. So you have made a version that is newer than what I looked at
which is So all these editors have already joined the working group.

Manu Sporny: No, this is old list of editors. but Patrick I think Dimmitri
I will be the last editor just as a backup.

Manu Sporny: And then we've got someone from Singapore that's not Calvin or
Kyle Hendry Poe who's going to be an editor.

Manu Sporny: And I think MOSIP's trying to figure out their W3C, but we
don't need all of them, I mean, this is just FWD.

Ivan Herman: No, we don't need all of them,…

Ivan Herman: which is fine. But you said Patrick, we gave him a green light
to join, but he hasn't joined the Perkin group.

Manu Sporny: Okay. Do you want me to just not list them? We can just got it.

Ivan Herman: These things can change in today. but at that time when I get
the documents all editors must be member of the working group. That's the
point.

Manu Sporny: Okay. All right.

Ivan Herman: So let's move down a little bit. But the headers seem be To be
Status of the document.

Ivan Herman: So that's the usual respect generated thing where everything
is settled. Things have been done that I didn't realize have been done.
that's perfect.

Manu Sporny: Okay.

Manu Sporny: Yeah, I did an update when I set up the publication.

Ivan Herman: That's perfect.

Manu Sporny: Yep. And…

Ivan Herman: And the same the other one.

Manu Sporny: then Yes, that's right. we Yep,…

Ivan Herman: So the titles have to be changed to what we agreed upon.

Manu Sporny: that's Okay. So,…

Ivan Herman: Then which we are fine.

Manu Sporny: as far as action items, Dimmitri, I can help, do you want to
put the FPWD together for render method and…

Manu Sporny: then Joe, you for confidence method?

Dmitri Zagidulin: Yes, I'll need some handh holding on…

Dmitri Zagidulin: how to do that.

Manu Sporny: I'm happy to help.

Joe Andrieu: Yeah, me too. That the checklist would be helpful just what
you walk through today, I think I've done that once or…

Manu Sporny: Yep.

Joe Andrieu: twice before, but it's always What's the next step?

Manu Sporny: No problem. Happy to help. fail your hand was up briefly.

Phil Archer: Yeah, just quickly I think the rules on ailiation is different
for a rec track document. So Pat St. Louis for example, I know his company
is called security identity but in the context of the working group isn't
he's an invited expert.

Ivan Herman: That's correct.

Manu Sporny: Yep. we'll get that updated. All right. I will work offline
with Dimmitri and Joe to get those FPWDs ready as quickly as we can. Avon,
does that cover the front matter content you wanted to address?

Ivan Herman:

Ivan Herman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I felt the document were in a worse state
than I realized.

Manu Sporny: Yep. No. Yeah. No. Yeah.

Manu Sporny: I updated it to try and get it igned. publication date.
remember that TAC's coming up and we have a publishing mortoriia. do we
want to get this out before or after TAC? Ivon, what do you feel about like
the publishing schedule?

Ivan Herman: So, I think we could. The only problem is that next week
between Wednesday and the weekend I am essentially out for family visit
reasons. So I don't want to take up anything. if you can finalize all the
documents by Tuesday, then on Tuesday I can put them up on the website and
I can raise the transition request. That means with a bit of luck, we get
an agreement. I mean it's a easy thing. I hope to get an approval on Friday
24.

Ivan Herman: That means the publication can happen either on the Tuesday
28th or Thursday 30 and that is still within the limit. if something goes
wrong we have one more week before the moratorum now…
00:35:00

Ivan Herman: because as me Phil has an uglier word for that but I am very
cautious. So, I would propose the 30th of October to be sure.

Manu Sporny: Plus one.

Manu Sporny: I was thinking the same date. Okay. So,…

Ivan Herman: Okay. Yes.

Manu Sporny: we'll target October 30th, which is a Thursday. That means
Dimmitri Joe, we've got to get all of this done by the end of the weekend
or next Monday, which is doable. this is not a difficult thing.

Ivan Herman: It's a proper big

Manu Sporny: Okay. Is that IPR commitments? we have something for that
implementations. We have something for that for both specs. I think that's
it for FPWD stuff.

Manu Sporny: Any other Okay.

Ivan Herman: just looking at the requation requests that I was sent to the
date have to be adjusted there as well…

Ivan Herman: but that I can do that don't worry about that that's for later
than when we get the approval Ready?

Manu Sporny: All Sounds good. All right. does that wrap up our FPWD
business? Do we have anything else to discuss around FPWD?

Ivan Herman: And…

Ivan Herman: we will set up a kidna after that, right? Once and…

Manu Sporny: Yes. Yep.

Joe Andrieu: Let's hope so.

Ivan Herman: you want a kid not to work in the other. So you will do it.

Manu Sporny: Yeah, I can do that or I'll work with Demetri and Joe to get
it configured. yeah,…

Ivan Herman: Joe had bad experience with a kid now. So he

Manu Sporny: I know. we'll avoid it in this one, I'm sure.

Manu Sporny: okay, that's noting the time, we could move on, to talking
about goals for the next several months. so let's jump into that
discussion. I think that the suggested goals here, Phil, to go back to
something you said earlier in the meeting, how close are we with each
specification?

Phil Archer: Yeah.

Manu Sporny: I believe what we're trying to do is get these to CR as
quickly as we can because we all know that there's this giant mountain of
other specifications that have been incubated and are kind of ready to go
into the BCWG and these two specs are going to kind of determine how
quickly we can move on those other specifications. but we also want to do a
very good job with render method and confidence method. and so I think the
general goal is to work as quickly as we can towards a version 10 that we
feel is complete enough. There may be features that we decide to put in
version 11 or version 20. and I'm sure we're going to have discussions
about it, but I think the goal here is to get these to as quickly as we
can. figure out what the test suites are going to do, that sort of thing.

Manu Sporny: Not yet.

Phil Archer: …

Phil Archer: so can I just respond to that? I know Demetri has his hand up.
Forgive me, Demetri. so, test suites exist for both of these documents, So
that's going to be one of the determining factors. and so it sounds to me
from what the sense I'm getting is that the earliest we could get to is
probably going to be January.

Manu Sporny: Yeah. After that, I think there's some significant issues that
we might want that might slow us down. So, yes,…

Phil Archer: So let's be realistic. As soon as possible means northern
hemisphere spring. Okay. Thank you.

Manu Sporny: I think that's realistic. go ahead, Demetri.

Dmitri Zagidulin: So just to refresh my memory with the render method spec
is the idea that the VC working group document will just be for the
extension mechanism and then we'll have separate repos for the individual
extensions let's take an HTML template would that be an example render
method in the main spec or would it have its own repo? So in the ECG

Manu Sporny: Good question.

Manu Sporny: Avon, you're up next.

Ivan Herman: Yeah, that's actually related to…

Ivan Herman: what Dimmitri asked because the text as of today opens up
something which is exciting but dangerous because it goes to the
accessibility thing. You talk about braille, you talk about sound and
whatever, which is of course something that you need for a render method,
but the document itself doesn't have any of those. It has PDF, SVG, and
essentially HTML.
00:40:00

Ivan Herman: And now HTML can cover a lot of things but if this document
goes to the accessibility review and you open up the door with referring to
braille then the question will be okay why don't you define a render suit
for braille right away why do you talk about it and not having anything
else about it so the amount of work might be big…

Ivan Herman: because of these things. And I have to I have no idea what it
would mean to make a render suit in braille.

Manu Sporny: Yes. Yes.

Manu Sporny: I think that's an excellent point, and Demetri, the one you
raised is an excellent point. It's going to determine whether render
method's going to be a quick turnaround or it's going to take a year, we
are probably going to have to have some difficult discussions about what's
in scope and what's out of scope. but that's a part of the work that needs
to be done. So one could make an argument that these specifications have
enough in them for a minimal viable implementation in an extension
mechanism. That's one approach we could take.

Manu Sporny: Or the other approach we could take is what braille rendering
is really important and we all believe that that is something we should do
as a part of the version 10 spec and we're going to commit to doing that
even if it extends the timeline a bit. So we are going to have to make that
decision as a group.

Manu Sporny: Nope no one in the queue.

Ivan Herman: And another I'm sorry is there anyone on the queue?

Ivan Herman: And another slightly adjacent question…

Ivan Herman: which goes back to what Mitri asked. Do we want to set up some
sort of a registry or whatever for render suit or we leave it completely
out to the wide. Okay.

Manu Sporny: So, the good news there is we already have a VC extensions
thing and…

Manu Sporny: we could put the extensions into that quote unquote registry.

Manu Sporny: Thumbs up from Dimmitri. But the overall goal going back to
kind of what's the goal here, I think we're trying to get to CR on a
reasonable time frame. I think, and reasonable it's going to be affected by
what we say is in scope. And what's in scope is going to highly depend on
what people are going to if somebody wants a, certain type of render
method, then they're going to have to put the effort into it to prepare
everything. for that, meaning normative spec text, testable statements,
test suite, implementations, as we all know, there's a lot that goes into
that.

Manu Sporny: Okay. Are there any other goals we're trying to achieve other
than getting these specs, in a functional enough form into candidate wreck
by the end of spring? does that seem like a reasonable goal? Set of goals.

Phil Archer: My mind's mulling on that question. I'm thinking of do we need
to engage wallet people?

Phil Archer: Because these things are relevant to wallets and is that an
important thing and does that just triple the amount of time this is going
to take or can we just do it? t know. I don't have an answer for that. But
those are the kind of things going through my head and I think some of
those things are going to come up as we go forward.

Manu Sporny: Plus one to that.

Manu Sporny: Dimmitri

Dmitri Zagidulin: So I can answer that partially. So yes, we definitely
want to engage wallet people in the sense that wallet implementers are
going to be the main contributors to the group, They're the ones who care
about it the most. So we can't help but engage wallet people. there aren't
separate W3C wallet groups as far as I know, but there are couple of
organizations that we should reach out to and at least give them a heads up
that we're working on this stuff that in invite them over but not as a
separate thing.
00:45:00

Phil Archer: Thank you.

Manu Sporny: Yeah, plus one to that.

Manu Sporny: For example, Phil, the wallet folks that are doing
implementations, one of them is MOSIP, and MOSIP has, hundreds of millions
of VCs issued,…

Phil Archer: Yeah.

Manu Sporny: and I've seen this, it's on their public repo, but I've seen
their render method stuff, and it is advanced they're doing multilingual
rendering of visual, farmworker credentials for the purposes of getting
loans.

Manu Sporny: these are high stakes credentials they've got a population
this is mostly in India large population many different languages many
different scripts when they issue something they need to issue it in a
minimum of four different languages that sort of thing so that pulls in
internationalization…

Phil Archer: Right.

Manu Sporny: which we've already started engaging on this it pulls in them
as a wallet implement the rendering of these things happens outside wallets
as well just on a website, right? So it goes beyond just wallets, but it is
true we need to pull, wallet implementers in. we Digital Bazaar have an
interest in this because we have a wallet and we want the stuff rendered
within the wallet to look nicer without having to handcustomize what every
single credential, looks like. so issuers also really care about what their
credentials look like.

Manu Sporny: So it's not just the wallet vendors, it's also the issuers of
these credentials. so I can say that for example the state of California
has an interest in what these things look like.

Manu Sporny: They're used to picking …

Phil Archer: Yeah,

Manu Sporny: what these things look like on paper and they'd like to have
the same kind of choices in digital form as well. go ahead Ivon. You're on
the queue.

Ivan Herman: So this raises for me a kind of an editorial thing that we
should keep in mind.

Ivan Herman: If I read through the document or I read through the document,
it was not crystal clear that this document is really doing what they've
said that defines the framework for individual so getting into concrete
render methods like we have here with the SVG and the others gives the
impression that our goal is to define specific render methods and
editorially it should be well separated and make it absolutely crystal
clear that this is not the goal of the work and SVG and PDF might

Ivan Herman: normative but only as examples of things that can be done.
Somehow this has to the me I am thinking about the messaging about this
spec. So what do we really define? And it is not absolutely clear at first
reading.

Manu Sporny: Demetri, you're on the queue.

Dmitri Zagidulin: So that's a really good point, Ivonne. would it help to
make that point clear in the very first sections of the introduction just
have a subsection that says this is an extension mechanism and…

Ivan Herman: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dmitri Zagidulin: and go into that. Okay. can do …

Ivan Herman: Absolutely. Don't even try to compete with the speed of money.

Dmitri Zagidulin: I was going to say I'll open an issue for it, but Manu is
very kindly doing it. Thank you, Mano. Amazing.

Phil Archer: And he's going to assign it to you as well, Demetri. So it's,
committed to you,…

Dmitri Zagidulin: Excellent.

Phil Archer: done. Next

Ivan Herman: If we make that clear, that might make for example the
accessibility review easier.

Dmitri Zagidulin: The call.

Phil Archer: Yeah, I know this is a topic for later, but I must admit I
kind of assumed that a VC could be rendered in whatever language you want
and would be in the language of the user.

Phil Archer: So a multilingual credential I would just assume as possible.
didn't occur to me that Yeah.

Dmitri Zagidulin: You would think that and…
00:50:00

Dmitri Zagidulin: and we all also that assume that right and we have an
internationalization spec section under the VC spec and everything in
practice it has been difficult. Exactly.

Phil Archer: Yeah. That's often the way, isn't it? Great in theory and it
turned out to do it and it turns out to be blooming hard. Yeah. I know.

Ivan Herman: Honey, are you still around? Yes.

Dmitri Zagidulin: No, we lost mano.

Phil Archer: You're still presenting.

Phil Archer: That's confusing.

Manu Sporny: Sorry, I was talking. Okay, Apologies. Can you hear me All
right. so we weren't able to get to issue processing today, which is fine.
this was a super productive meeting. let's talk about kind of the next
meeting. next week is IW, so we're not going to have a call, because most
though they're going to be a lot of people at IW. but we've talked to the
CCG incubation group which has their call on the weeks that the VCWG call
doesn't happen, we have gotten them to move to this time slot, the one
we're in currently.

Manu Sporny: So that means that we're going to move this time this spec
refinement call to the same time slot as the VCWG call which then hopefully
make it so that everyone that can make the VCWG call can make these spec
refinement calls. So, we'll just have weekly meetings now where one meeting
a month will be the official VCWG big meeting and then 3 weeks out of the
month we will have this specification refinement call. It will be
Wednesdays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. okay. So, just to note that we're going
to switch the time block.

Manu Sporny: So we're going to this meeting, one we're having right now,
will meet at the same time as VCWG weekly meetings.

Phil Archer: Thank you.

Manu Sporny: No problem. I need to make those updates. the call next week I
think is cancelled because of IW and so we will meet the week after. okay.
I think that's it for the call today. Is there anything else we need to
discuss? All right, with that, thank you everyone. Really appreciate all
the great engagement and discussion. I think we're off to a really good
start here. We will get those FPWDs, prepped for you, Avon, and get them
over to you next week.

Ivan Herman: Okay, beginning of next week as I in the IRC or…

Manu Sporny: With the publication, beginning of next week. Yep.

Phil Archer: Thanks everyone. Byebye.

Manu Sporny: which always…

Ivan Herman: whatever the message I have grandfather duties starting
Wednesday and…

Manu Sporny: which always take precedence over anything else.

Ivan Herman: this always takes precedence.

Manu Sporny: That's of course. All right. thanks everyone. Have a wonderful
rest of your week and weekend and we will chat again in two weeks. Take
care. Bye.
Meeting ended after 00:54:15 👋

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