Re: Verifiable Claims Telecon Minutes for 2016-03-29

On 30 March 2016 at 01:40, Kaliya IDwoman <kaliya-id@identitywoman.net <mailto:kaliya-id@identitywoman.net>> wrote:
Hi folks,

 You don't know me....but you might have heard of me..I'm Identity Woman.
 I have watched many many identity efforts arise and fall in the last 12 years

Hi!  Yes, I am familiar with your work :)


 I am a bit surprised to hear OpenID Connect and SAML as failures in the space - they actually work and are widely adopted.  They provide ways to exchange various types of information about people between different business entities.

The problem you are seeking to solve is not an easy one to solve and there have been many, many different attempts. There are some interesting ongoing efforts that are different but related such as the Trust Elevation TC at OASIS.


Do you think OASIS may be any closer at this point to aligning their work with the W3C's work at LInked Data.

The last time I evaluated this there was still something of a gap.  I've seen positive steps tho from folks like Paul Trevithick and more recently Marcus Sabadello (XDI)


I think it would be VERY VERY VERY advisable to have a few of the most active and most keen members of this committee come out to the Internet Identity Workshop April 26-28 in Mountain View to float what you are thinking about doing and get substantive meaningful input from the community of people who have worked in this problem space...some of them for 20+ years and within the IIW for 11 years. So there is a huge brain trust to draw on.

If the ticket to get into to IIW is to expensive ... I will be happy to work with those who want to come on getting discount codes to make it doable...for who ever wants to attend.

http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com <http://www.internetidentityworkshop.com/>

I strongly suggest that believing you can solve "it" whatever you define as that without tapping the community knowledge pool at IIW is a fools errand.

I think 'fools errand' may be overstating the case.  Are you actually familiar with the technical details of the solution offered?

Also I suspect you're not impartial here, as dont you have a hand in organzing IIW?  However, I have seen some good work come out of this conference.  I do much prefer the W3C stack for this, at this point in time.  My hope is for such efforts to converge over time.


Regards,
- Kaliya





On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:32 AM, <msporny@digitalbazaar.com <mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com>> wrote:
Thanks to Gregg Kellogg for scribing this week! The minutes
for this week's Verifiable Claims telecon are now available:

http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-03-29/ <http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-03-29/>

Full text of the discussion follows for W3C archival purposes.
Audio from the meeting is available as well (link provided below).

----------------------------------------------------------------
Verifiable Claims Telecon Minutes for 2016-03-29

Agenda:
  https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments-ig/2016Mar/0059.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments-ig/2016Mar/0059.html>
Topics:
  1. Introduction to Todd Albers
  2. W3C Advisory Committee Summary
  3. Next Steps (in the next 4-6 weeks)
  4. Spec Ops
Action Items:
  1. Manu to contact interviewees and survey respondents with
    charter and use cases and questionnaire.
  2. Shane to update use cases to make them broader than payments
    (based on feedback at W3C AC Meeting)
  3. Matt Stone to review use cases.
  4. Richard Varn to review use cases.
  5. Eric Korb to review use cases.
  6. Carla Casilli to review use cases.
  7. Todd Albers to review use cases.
Organizer:
  Manu Sporny
Scribe:
  Gregg Kellogg
Present:
  Gregg Kellogg, Manu Sporny, Todd Albers, Shane McCarron, Carla
  Casilli, Richard Varn, Dave Longley, Matt Stone, David I. Lehn,
  Daniel C. Burnett, Rob Trainer, Andy Dale, Colleen Kennedy
Audio:
  http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-03-29/audio.ogg <http://w3c.github.io/vctf/meetings/2016-03-29/audio.ogg>

Gregg Kellogg is scribing.
Manu Sporny:  Talking about W3C meeting and SpecOps.

Topic: Introduction to Todd Albers

Todd Albers:  I’m Todd Albers, work for US Federal Reserve Bank.
  I’m interested in the different use cases as it relates to
  credentials.
  … My background is in web apps and have worked in SaaS with
  credit cards.

Topic: W3C Advisory Committee Summary

Manu Sporny:  We started circulating a draft charter for VCWG. We
  tried to paint a picture of what the WG would look like based on
  42 respnoses to survey, and the 12+ people we interviewed around
  the charter.
Manu Sporny:
  http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/vcwg-draft.html <http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/charter/vcwg-draft.html>
  … We also showed use cases.
Manu Sporny: http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/use-cases/ <http://w3c.github.io/webpayments-ig/VCTF/use-cases/>
  … We focused primarily around credentials uses for payments.
  Initial feedback is that they would like to see it broader (e.g.,
  Healthcare and Education). The discussions last week at the
  Advisory Committee reinforced that.
  … We did a number of interviews to see what they thought about
  the work. A number of respondents were very cautious, due to
  previous failures in the space (OpenID Connect, SAML, …).
  … There was some pushback questioning why this work was
  different. We were able to sit down with them (Dan Applequist).
  He’d like to see more general language at the beginning of the
  doc to make it clear what problem we’re trying to solve.
  … We spoke with the AC Rep from Apple (David Singer) who was
  also cautious.
  … We also spoke with Harry Halpin, who has been most strongly
  opposed to the work. We indicated that the charter was modified
  due to his input. He thought this was a positive step, but had
  not reviewed the charter. He raised an issue on our claim of
  consensus to create a charter. I went through the list of people,
  and he had no response to that. (He’d like to see the list).
  … We brought up VC, and I didn’t hear any strong objection to
  the work. There are upwards of 400 members, and we would need to
  respond if we get any formal objections.
Shane McCarron:  I didn’t hear anything negative. I did hear was
  intereset from quarters I hadn’t expected, where there are uses
  we hadn’t expected.
Manu Sporny:  Web Annotations would like something like this to
  not who author is, also RIAA and MPAA for noting artists and
  royalties.
  … All in all, it was really good; it didn’t seem like anyone
  was surprized or came out of left field. We talked with W3CM
  (Jeff Jaffe) who wanted to see how it was going, and to see who
  would be Staff contact for this work.
  … I mentioned that gkellogg is a front-runner as far as being a
  staff contact, but we need to find funding, but others may come
  up too.
Carla Casilli: Feels like a good time to say Yay!

Topic: Next Steps (in the next 4-6 weeks)

Manu Sporny:  It’s up to us now, and there doesn’t seem to be
  anyone standing in the way. We could bring it in front of the W3C
  Membership for a formal vote sooner or later. We need to be sure
  it’s structured to have a very good chance of success. What comes
  next is getting people who are going to show up every week,
  engage, and get the hard work done over the next 2 years.
Shane McCarron: We did say we would circle back with the
  interviewees.  Has that been done?
  … We’re going to ask people for committments, show up, join
  W3C, etc. If we don’t get at least 20 W3C members voting for it,
  and at least 15 people who show up regularly. Good news is that
  we’ve had that engagement so far, but people need to commit to
  join the W3C.
  … We need to hire a W3C Fellow, make test suites, and so forth,
  and that takes money. We’re at the point where it needs funding
  for us to start. If we start without that in place, the work
  could falter.
  … We haven’t yet circled back with interviewees, and survey
  respondents this week. There’s a question of if we should create
  a committment questionaire.
Richard Varn: Can you summarize the to dos?
Shane McCarron:  We said we would formally circle back.
Carla Casilli: What's the minimum number of required
  participants?
Manu Sporny:  You missed that, we haven’t yet done that and need
  to do it this week. I’m wondering if we should have a
  questionaire to see if people would participate, object or
  something else.
Manu Sporny:  Richard asked about ToDo’s. The first thing is to
  notify interviewees that we have a charter and want to forge
  ahead. Do they see any issues. Then we need to get back with
  Survey respondents (23 or so).
Richard Varn: Don't forget Lumina
Manu Sporny:  Then we need to push key organizations for informal
  reviews of the charter (Bloomberg, Fed Reserve, B&M Gates
  Foundations, EMS, Pearson, …) need to get them on the record..

  … The faster we get to 20 commitments, the better, but we
  should shoot for 50 organizations supporting the work.
  … It takes 20-25 yes votes to start. There must be at least 10
  participants on each call.
Carla Casilli: Great, thanks.
Manu Sporny:  Those are low bars. The Web Payments IG has 47
  organizations and 112 participants; I’d like to do at least as
  well.
  … Once we get to that point, the charter will go up for formal
  review. There’s 1-2 months for review and voting. W3C will review
  votes and handle objections, and hopefully, we’ll have a WG after
  that. Timeline is still end of July to start the WG.
Richard Varn: Are we reasonably sure the vested interests and
  browser makers will not object?
Manu Sporny:  We don’t see any objections on the horizon.
Richard Varn: Cool
Manu Sporny:  We’re predicting 18-24 months to do the work. We
  could do in 12 months if everything goes according to plan (but
  it never does).
  … We’re releasing a blog post about our experiences with the
  Web Payments group so far: things have not gone well, at least
  when it came to our group creating a bunch of specs and putting
  it into a WG. We tried to get browser vendors on board, but bad
  things happened.
Richard Varn: Understood
Dave Longley: But hopefully a lot will be mitigated by starting
  small
  … Even though we’ve asked and giving notification, and we’re
  not doing protocol, which they care about, there are no
  guarantees. The WPIG is an example of how things can fall apart.
  That’s one of the biggest concerns we have, how to mitigate risks
  of powerful groups coming in and disrupting the process.
Dave Longley: Some of that vision will have started to actualize,
  so it can be seen/understood by new players more easily.
Dave Longley: If we have implementations out there.
  … As dlongley says, starting small and getting deployments is
  key. Having deployments in an industry before it comes into W3C
  is a good thing, as it validates the vision, and shows that it
  can’t be easily moved. Its a risk we need to understand

ACTION: Manu to contact interviewees and survey respondents with
  charter and use cases and questionnaire.


ACTION: Shane to update use cases to make them broader than
  payments (based on feedback at W3C AC Meeting)

Manu Sporny:  I’ll also create the survey and put it out to the
  group.
Shane McCarron: +1 To reviewing the use case document
  … We need to take a closer look at the use cases document to
  make sure everyone understands it. Particularly as people think
  it’s too focused on payments.
Shane McCarron: I would also like to start (again) working on the
  extended use cases

ACTION: Matt Stone to review use cases.


ACTION: Richard Varn to review use cases.


ACTION: Eric Korb to review use cases.

Shane McCarron:  We talked about an extended use-case document
  (the “vision” thing). Where should it live, in CG or as adjunct
  document within VCTF?)
Manu Sporny:  I’d suggest in CG for now. I’m concerned about
  handing a document over to a group that won’t tend to it long
  term.
Matt Stone:  I was going to ask where we are going to manage
  other workspaces and have a sand-box to flesh it out. Do we have
  a vision for how to bring in other industries? We could add
  example uses cases for each flow in each industry.
Manu Sporny:  We don’t have anything solid in mind right now.
  Just repeating the use case for each industry isn’t useful, but
  spreading around the use case descriptions among 5-6 industries
  would be useful.
Matt Stone:  Would it make sense to have a meta-use case to show
  creating, issuing, verifying across different use cases?
Carla Casilli: What's the timeframe for review and editing?
Manu Sporny:  I think the editors have worked on some of these
  already. You might point out flows which are missing. Adding 2-3
  more flows would be useful.
Carla Casilli: Okay, just wanted to know if it was by 12pm ET. ;)

ACTION: Carla Casilli to review use cases.

  … Realistically, we need another month to do this work. But,
  really ASAP. Reviews should be in by the end of this week so we
  can review it.
Todd Albers: I can help with the review as well

ACTION: Todd Albers to review use cases.

Manu Sporny:  Shanem and other editors are in charge of getting
  use cases cross-industrty.
  … Next week, we’ll try and see how we’re doing with
  commitments; we’re going to need everyone’s help to get
  commitments for this work.
  … Then we need to be sure the work is well-funded, so we don’t
  languish.

Topic: Spec Ops

Matt Stone:  This is the first W3C I’ve participated in so
  actively. You’ve mentioned funding; can you briefly tell us how
  that works?
Manu Sporny:  We’re doing something a bit different than the way
  W3C groups typically run. VC and Credentials is a “charged”
  topic; there have been failures in the past and people are
  nervous about it. We’ve done a good job in making something
  achievable.
  … Typically, you create a charter, and companies join. But,
  when the work starts, they typically send people to do the work
  that are stretched too thin. A number of WG’s I’ve participating
  in, the vast amount of work is done by Volunteers (Invited
  Experts). This is a skill that people acquire over years, which
  can slow down the work.
  … The question is, do we depend on companies to do the work, or
  do we hire people to support us through the process, that’s what
  Spec Ops is about (Specification Operations). It was set up to
  accellerate the process of doing standards work, so we don’t hit
  the typical snags.
  … We need folks like ShaneM, he’s the projects manager at
  SpecOps; same with Gregg and Dan. It’s highly unlikelly that W3C
  will staff the work.
  … We don’t have a good response, as no current W3C staff member
  has jumped at it; a failed effort reflects badly on the staff,
  and noone has an appitite for the work, and they’re swamped.
  We’re going to have to bring in someone from the outside.
  … A company can fund a “W3C Fellow” to do such work. A number
  of us have been through this process before, which helps us out.
Shane McCarron:  It’s also not clear to me who at W3C would staff
  this; picking a Fellow to staff is probably the best way to make
  it happen. I don’t want anyone to think that SpecOps is
  strong-arming the group to go in a particular direction.
  … We’re not saying you need to buy a standard, but work like
  this needs dedicated people doing the work. There’s a lot of
  cross-group coordination needed, which is something the staff
  contact makes happen. SpecOps is about finding such experts and
  getting them into the work.
Shane McCarron: https://spec-ops.io <https://spec-ops.io/>
Matt Stone:  Is it fair to thing about SpecOps as staff
  augmentation for W3C?
Manu Sporny:  Yes. To be clear, this is not about paying SpecOps
  to get the standard through the door, but there is stuff that
  needs to be done that large organizations don’t know how to do.
  This causes the standard to slow or stop.
  … If a number of organizations join and staff with good
  technologists, that’s great! (This rarely happens). Because of
  the high risk of people pointing to this and saying “I told you
  so”, I’m particularly concerned.
  … If it starts out and it turns out there’s a large number of
  qualified people, then we won’t need SpecOps, but I’ve rarely
  seen that happen (maybe once).
Shane McCarron:  Its my job as Projects Manager for SpecOps to
  answer such questions, so please contact me.
Manu Sporny:  Spec editing is hard to staff, as is test-suite
  generation. There are a number of technologies we depend on that
  need to be created, WebDHT, RDF Normalization, … A new group
  needs to be started to make this stuff work.
Matt Stone: +1 (Empathy) to ShaneM
  … when we start a WG we need an idea about how this work is
  going to happen. Right now, we don’t have a solid plan for RDF
  Normalization, LD Signatures, WebDHT or decentralized identifier
  work. Without those technologies, we don’t have portable
  credentials.
Shane McCarron:  For example, the Web Annotation WG asked me to
  attend last week. They’ve done a lot of work on a JSON-LD-based
  mechnisms for annotation, but got to the end without realizing
  they had no testing infrastructure.
Manu Sporny:  As dlongley says, SpecOps creates technology that
  is broadly available.
Manu Sporny:  We’ll focus on use cases, responses and survey for
  the rest of the week.
Carla Casilli: Thanks, all! bye