Re: Request for informal review of Verifiable Claims WG Charter

+1.  This would benefit greatly from incubation; I don't see that it's
really coalesced enough to create a working group.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Michael Champion <
Michael.Champion@microsoft.com> wrote:

> >This is an *informal* request to review the Verifiable Claims Working
> >Group charter. This charter is NOT under W3C Membership review yet.
> >
>
> Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this before doing a formal AC
> review.  After reviewing the draft charter [1] and the minutes of the
> recent Verifiable Claims Task Force call [2] Microsoft doesn’t believe this
> effort is mature enough to take to a Working Group.
>
> Specific concerns about the proposed Verifiable Claims WG include:
>
> - The TF minutes indicate “It’s highly unlikely that W3C will staff the
> work”, and considers “do we depend on companies to do the work, or do we
> hire people to support us through the process?” The apparent plan is for
> the proponents to self-fund the team contact with a W3C Fellow. This raises
> concerns and questions…. Yes, getting specs “over the hump” to
> Recommendation with issue resolution, test case development, etc. is hard
> and thankless work, and it’s great when members dig into their pockets to
> make it happen.  But when launching a new effort, the W3C community should
> be skeptical of spec efforts that don’t have real skin in the game from the
> members who would have to implement and use the resulting specs if they are
> to be successful.
>
> - The TF minutes also note there is skepticism among those who have
> reviewed the use cases because there have been several previous attempts to
> develop similar products / standards that have not been successful.  Manu
> has written [3] a very useful summary of these “dramatic failures.”  What
> is lacking in the proposal is persuasive evidence that yet another
> standards effort would have a better outcome this time.  Who are the key
> stakeholders who believe they have the problem this work would solve?  Who
> needs to implement and deploy the solution in order for it to be
> successful?  Are they ready to make the investments to come to consensus on
> a standard and make it work in the real world?
>
> - Inquiries during our informal review indicate that some governments are
> unlikely to trust credentials that are not received directly from the
> agency responsible for issuing them. Furthermore, the government interest
> in this area that we are aware of is directed on de jure standards efforts
> already underway, and this is where the attention of our technical experts
> is focused.
>
> Bottom line: we would oppose creating a Verifiable Claims WG at this time,
> and are unlikely to participate if it were created because our experts are
> working in other standards organizations on this general topic.
>  Proponents would need to do a significant amount of additional work to
> generate more extensive and persuasive evidence --- that a specific
> technology in this area is mature enough to be standardized, that a W3C WG
> in this space would add value to existing standardization efforts, and that
> a W3C Recommendation would be widely implemented and used – to persuade us
> otherwise.
>
> [1] http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/vcwg-draft.html
> [2] http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-03-29/
> [3] http://manu.sporny.org/2015/credentials-retrospective/
>
>
> -
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
> Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 1:35 PM
> To: "w3c-ac-forum@w3.org" <w3c-ac-forum@w3.org>, "
> public-webpayments-comments@w3.org" <public-webpayments-comments@w3.org>
> Subject: Request for informal review of Verifiable Claims WG Charter
> Resent-From: "w3c-ac-forum@w3.org" <w3c-ac-forum@w3.org>
> Resent-Date: Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 1:36 PM
>
> >This is an *informal* request to review the Verifiable Claims Working
> >Group charter. This charter is NOT under W3C Membership review yet.
> >
> >In short, the work is about expressing and exchanging cryptographically
> >verifiable proofs of age, driver's licenses, passports, and
> >educational/professional qualifications via the Web.
> >
> >We are sharing this charter now because a few of us that have been
> >working on this charter (Manu Sporny, Shane McCarron, and David Ezell)
> >will be at the W3C AC Meeting in Cambridge next week and would like to
> >discuss it with you.
> >
> >An Editor's Draft of the Verifiable Claims WG Charter can be found here:
> >http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/vcwg-draft.html
> >
> >The Use Cases associated with the charter can be found here:
> >http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/use-cases/
> >
> >There is a nascent FAQ that can be found here:
> >http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/faq.html
> >
> >Please review the charter if this work seems like it may be interesting
> >to your organization and send comments to:
> >
> >public-webpayments-comments@w3.org
> >
> >For those of you that will be at the Advisory Committee meeting next
> >week, pull me, Shane, or David Ezell aside and we'd be happy to answer
> >any questions you may have about the charter.
> >
> >-- manu
> >
> >--
> >Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> >Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> >blog: Web Payments: The Architect, the Sage, and the Moral Voice
> >https://manu.sporny.org/2015/payments-collaboration/
> >
>
>
>
>