Re: Support for Verifiable Claims

Hi Michael (and Tantek and Chris),

On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 5:50 AM, Michael Champion <
Michael.Champion@microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > We need to the Task Force/Community Group to drive a broad,
>
> >  fully formed market solution and recruit implementors to prove and/or
>
> >  evolve to meet the reality of the marketplace.
>
>
>
> This is probably the crux of the disagreement on this thread:  Should
> W3C  start by building standards and recruit implementers to make it a
> marketplace reality, or should W3C provide a venue where implementers and
> other players in real markets collaborate to iron out their differences to
> improve interoperability, accessibility, security, etc.?  I submit (and I
> think Chris and Tantek agree) that the former approach might have been
> successful in the early days of W3C, but there are few successful examples
> of a standards-first approach in recent years.  That’s why we push for
> incubation-first - -build communities, get rough consensus and running code
> first, then standardize what is successful.
>
>
>
> If there is rough consensus and running code around the proposed
> verifiable claims data model already, then I for one just need a clearer
> and more succinct guide to it than what the WG proposal offers.
>


The issue of whether the W3C should lead or follow is certainly a core
disagreement between both the Team and the membership. The impact is felt
whenever a WG is proposed. We cannot pretend that is resolved, nor do we
have any reason to think that it will be resolved.

There is another, parallel, concern which was quite evident at TPAC: How
much relative power should the larger members have over the choice of WGs?
Chris may say that he only has one vote, but clearly his vote counts for
more. I find it difficult to believe that a WG will be created over the
voiced objections of Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft.

However, has not Manu created the consensus necessary to stand up a WG?
Your organisations may not choose to implement a Recommendation coming from
that WG, but should you stand in the way of other Members choosing to
pursue it?



 *From:* Stone, Matt [mailto:matt.stone@pearson.com]
>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 1, 2016 5:46 PM
> *To:* Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com>
> *Cc:* Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>; Tantek Çelik <
> tantek@cs.stanford.edu>; Michael Champion <Michael.Champion@microsoft.com>;
> Mark Nottingham <mnotting@akamai.com>; w3c-ac-forum@w3.org;
> public-webpayments-comments@w3.org; Richard Varn <rvarn@ets.org>;
> Drummond Reed <drummond@respectnetwork.com>; Nathan George <
> nathan.george@evernym.com>; Kerri Lemoie <kerri@openworksgrp.com>; Nate
> Otto <nate@badgealliance.org>; David Chadwick <d.w.chadwick@kent.ac.uk>;
> Eric Korb <Eric.Korb@accreditrust.com>; Christopher Allen <
> ChristopherA@blockstream.com>; Phil Archer <phila@w3.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Support for Verifiable Claims
>
>
>
> Our challenge is one of balance. Particularly balancing between 1) the
> dynamic and organic developent of a broad solution that speaks to a
> strongly felt market need, i.e. portable, secure, trustworty personal
> claims that are tamperproof and verifiable from the source and 2) codifing
> and standardizing the knowlege we have and the progress we've made.
> Standards that provide new entrants a starting point to facilitate either
> adoption or contirbution to the larger problem.
>
>
>
> With the aide of the AC, we have focused the charter on delivering the
> smallest possible unit of work that provides value to the marketplace--This
> is about as far away from a WaterFall process as I can imagine.
>
>
>
> Existing technology standards have fallen short in a number of ways that
> we have enumerated several times.  We stand at an inflection point that
> boils down to this.  Either the existing standards solve this problem and
> the 50+ small and enterprise companies, whose success is dependent upon the
> free and frictionless transport of this kind of data are too dim to
> actually cobble them together, or we have identified a true gap that needs
> to be solved.  I haven't heard anyone doubt the tecnical aptitude of the
> Task Force contributors, so I lean toward the latter.
>
>
>
> For many of us, this is a side job of a side job, nevertheless, we're
> voluteering to facilitate the modern practice of mananging the tension that
> exists in the balancing act above.  We need to the Task Force/Community
> Group to drive a broad, fully formed market solution and recruit
> implementors to prove and/or evolve to meet the reality of the
> marketplace.  Simultanesouly, we must standardize the buildig blocks so
> that the foundation of what we know and agree on can simply be a given.
>
>
>
> Let's not boil the ocean, let's show incremental success.
>
>
>
>  -stone
>
>
>
>  ==
>
>  Matt Stone
>
>  Pearson
>
>  501-837-5995
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Chris Wilson <cwilso@google.com> wrote:
>
> 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/
>
>
>
>
>