Re: Support for Verifiable Claims

I'll be (relatively) brief, as I'm deep in prep for a conference next week.

1) This is a far better laying-out of your case than I've seen before.  In
particular, the "implementers" page you refer to twice in this message is
not referenced at all from the proposed charter; nor is the status of the
implementers, nor the incubated data model document.  All of those would
have strengthened your case, and I'm not going to listen to the audio
recording of your group meetings to get it, sorry.  It would be further
helpful to understand what implementers would be shipping, or how they
would use such a product; otherwise, it's like me saying "Chrome has two
billion potential users".  But that aside, all that context is useful, and
not easily (or at all?) findable directly from the charter proposal I
reviewed.
2) Neither myself, Tantek, Mike nor Mark have it in our power to allow or
disallow a VCWG to be formed.  We each only get one vote, same as anyone
else.
3) I strongly agree with everything Mike said in his latest message,
particularly

I'd also be more receptive if someone explained how all the existing
standards do or do not fit together here.  David Ezell once explained that
you're proposing essentially a new architectural layer to glue them
together.  That sounds promising, but it's not obvious to me as a
non-specialist how this relates to the architecture diagram in the VC WG
proposal.  Nor is it obvious to me whether you’re proposing a generic data
model/syntax or one that is constrained to work with the Linked Data stack
(which I have gotten hints of in various scans of meeting minutes).


In short, clarity and brevity counts.  I apologize if that sounds
irritating; but this is a side job of my side job, I'm sure it's not easier
for anyone else, and at the same time I've a commitment to trying to
improve the quality of /TR/ at the W3C, and that means being intentional
about what I agree the W3C should start WGs for.

On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 11:45 AM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
wrote:

> Hi Tantek, Chris, Michael, and Mark,
>
> In an attempt to summarize your concerns wrt. Verifiable Claims, each of
> you effectively asked the following two questions:
>
> On 10/26/2016 08:12 PM, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > I would feel much more positively about this charter if 1) there were
> > commitments to implement some product of the WG, and its deliverables
> > were more concrete, and 2) it was explained why we NEED a WG here -
> > i.e., what wall is the ecosystem hitting by doing work in an
> > incubation?
>
> Michael and Chris, these questions were raised earlier this year by both
> of you during the Web Payments IG review of the proposed Verifiable
> Claims charter. I believe the Web Payments IG answered your questions at
> that point by referencing some of the same information that will be
> shared below. The question above sounds like the same question from both
> of you. The VCTF will attempt to answer it again using information
> shared with you previously in addition to more information we've
> gathered since that discussion with you.
>
> Tantek and Mark, this may be the first time you're seeing this data, so
> let us know if this is an adequate answer or if you remain concerned
> about the questions raised regarding incubation and implementations.
>
> The questions each of you raised were a topic of discussion at our
> first Verifiable Claims face-to-face meeting[1][2] and our most recent
> telecon[3]. This email condenses all of the discussion on this topic in
> an attempt to make it easier for each of you to see that we do have
> future implementation commitments, we have current implementations, and
> why we need a WG for the work to progress.
>
> On 10/26/2016 08:12 PM, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > I would feel much more positively about this charter if 1) there were
> > commitments to implement some product of the WG, and its deliverables
> > were more concrete,
>
> There are 14 commitments from Software Vendors to implement (in code) a
> product of the WG:
>
> http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/implementers/
>
> There are commitments from Issuers, Repositories, Inspectors, and
> Influencers to deploy a product of the WG:
>
> http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/implementers/
>
> The deliverables of the WG are concrete, and are listed in the charter:
>
> http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/#deliverables
>
> One of the deliverables is a a data model and syntax, which has been
> incubated for at least two years (some would argue 4+ years):
>
> http://opencreds.org/specs/source/claims-data-model/
>
> The specification (or some variation of it) has been (or is currently
> being) implemented and deployed in real world scenarios by at least 8
> organizations, some of whom are W3C members, some of them with millions
> of customers (ETS and Pearson, for example):
>
> http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-11-01/#60
>
> I urge you to listen to the audio minutes from our last call (starting
> at 27:30 going until 34:00) which has representatives from each
> organization listed above asserting that they have implementations:
>
> http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-11-01/audio.ogg
>
> On 10/26/2016 08:12 PM, Chris Wilson wrote:
> > 2) it was explained why we NEED a WG here - i.e., what wall is the
> > ecosystem hitting by doing work in an incubation?
>
> We need a WG because we desire broader interoperability.
>
> We have a spec, we have preliminary implementations, and desire the sort
> of interoperability and signalling to other organizations that only a
> W3C specification can provide. To paraphrase Matt Stone (Pearson) and
> Richard Varn (ETS) from our most recent set of meetings: ETS and Pearson
> have been trying to inter-operate for more than a decade and see the
> Verifiable Claims work as a way to get these two large organizations and
> their customers to inter-operate with the assurance that everyone is
> implementing to the same standard. A standard that has gone through the
> W3C Process is desired. There are many more organizations that desire
> this outcome, as we've demonstrated[4] with our broad industry survey data.
>
> My question to each of you, Tantek, Chris, Michael, and Mark is whether
> or not this data allays your incubation and deployment experience
> concerns to the point of allowing a W3C Verifiable Claims WG to be
> formed?
>
> -- manu
>
> [1]http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-10-27/
> [2]http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-10-28/
> [3]http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-11-01/#60
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Rebalancing How the Web is Built
> http://manu.sporny.org/2016/rebalancing/
>