Re: Strategy (present and future) (was: Re: Google payment plans)

Hi Manu,

People have genuinely spent their time, seeking to contribute.  Like you, I do consider the chaos and offer some suggestions...

Timh.
Sent from my iPad

> On 11 Apr 2014, at 3:01 pm, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:
> 
> A previous post[1] outlined the problems we've attempted to overcome and
> strategies we've utilized in an attempt to address those problems. This
> post will outline the current problems facing the group and the proposed
> strategies that we could employ to address those issues. Healthy debate
> on the strategies put forward is necessary. Raise problems if you don't
> see them identified below.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem: Chaotic, undirected focus in this community.
> 
> Goal: Narrow focus to problems raised in Web Payments Workshop.
> 
> Strategy: Coordinate volunteers to focus on crunching the data that we
> have gathered over the past several months (payment use cases, workshop
> use cases) and update the Web Payments Use Cases document in order to
> provide it as input to the W3C Payments Interest Group. The short-term
> focus should shift to providing a solid argument, backed by data, of why
> we're working on what we're working on. This argument should be able to
> be re-used by the W3C Payments IG (we should try to be aligned w/ that
> group's goals).
> 
> Candidates: Brent Shambaugh, Andrew Mackie, Tim Holborn, Anders Rundgren
> 
> I've received a few notes of dismay related to the seemingly undirected
> energies in the group. A bit of chaos is fine, this is a technology
> incubator after all, if we all agreed with one another we'd be a pretty
> terrible incubator. The sort of group that we have is supposed to be
> mildly chaotic by design. That said, there's a fine balance between just
> the right amount of chaos, and so much chaos that we push productive
> members away.
> 
My feeling is perhaps a lack of web3 awareness is contributing to the dismay of others, who may well understand very much, the background of broader projects / scopes of web3 related projects.  I doubt web-payments would have a reasonably equal feasibility if we excluded the concept of linked-data...  

Well documented use-cases should certainly help forge solutions more broadly.  Ideally, the contributor pool will grow considerably and given the lack of practical awareness of rdf utility, I'm thinking there will be ongoing questions in this area.

> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem: The long-term strategy of the Web Payments CG is unclear.
> 
> Goal: Provide at least a 2 year vision of what and how the Web Payments
> CG should accomplish.
> 
> Strategy: Gather the people that care about long-term strategy and put
> up a simple wiki page outlining the 2 year vision for this group.
> 
> Candidates: Manu Sporny, Anders Rundgren, Chaals, Pindar Wong
> 
> The two year vision is pretty simple - filter information and
> technologies so that the Payments IG doesn't have to do as much work as
> they would have to do if this group didn't exist. We want to help the
> Payments IG make decisions quickly, because the faster they make
> decisions, the faster we get solid payment standards for the Web.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem: In order to scale, we need more community members working on
> specific deliverables.
> 
Agreed

> Goal: Add at least one editor to each specification/document that this
> group has identified as "in scope".
> 
> Strategy: Ask community members to volunteer, if no volunteers come
> forward the community should actively seek editors for the standards
> documents.
> 
> The Web Payments Workshop is behind us. We have some pretty clear
> mandates on what is in scope and what's out of scope. There are some
> areas where it's not clear whether we have consensus or not. We do know
> that we need a solid use cases document. We can feel fairly certain that
> we're going to need the Identity Credentials spec (Identity on the Web),
> Web Commerce API (payment initiation), and Web Commerce (Offers and
> Digital Receipts) specs whipped into shape. In order to make all of this
> happen in a timely manner, we need more people editing the documents.
> 

Some existing work exists with special consideration for pos systems / digital receipts.  How can we seek to engage these groups? 

> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem: Not enough input from public policy, government, financial,
> consumer advocacy groups, or legal sector.
> 
> Goal: Build our network of contacts in the public policy, government,
> consumer advocacy groups, and legal space to the point that we do not
> think we're deficient in this area anymore.
> 
> Strategy: Go to the conferences and workshops that attract these sectors
> and engage them there. Internet Governance Forum 2014 is the first such
> event for this year.
> 
> Candidates: Pindar Wong, Joseph Potvin, Norbert Bollow, Manu Sporny, and
> Louise Bennett
> 
> We've tried for the last 18 months to have folks from these sectors join
> the work that we're doing. We've been somewhat successful, but not as
> much as we'd like. Instead of requesting that non-technical/payments
> people join us here, it might be better to go out to them and give them
> updates on how things are progressing here. We'll need volunteers to do
> that. General advocacy, everyone on this mailing list can help with that.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem: There isn't enough funding to support the desires of this
> community.
> 
> Goal: Raise enough money to hire 4-5 part-time engineers and
> specification editors.
> 
> Strategy: Create a non-profit that would be a funding vehicle to hire
> specification editors, open source implementers, and test suite engineers.
> 
> The non-profit would be tasked with hiring the appropriate people to
> work on key deliverables for the Payments work. All output would have to
> be open source / open standards work (released under a FreeBSD/MIT or
> equivalent license, or a W3C license). We'd make the rounds to large
> organizations that have a the will and the money, but not the technical
> expertise to work on the output necessary to achieve what this group
> would like to do (and there are quite a few of these organizations).
> 
W3c license makes the most sense?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Problem: Alienating the long-term visionaries in the group (Bitcoin,
> distributed ledgers, smart contracts, automated agents, RWW advocates, etc.)
> 
> Goal: Ensure that the CG remains a place for discussion about these
> technologies.
> 
> Strategy: Unknown.
> 
> How do we tell people to keep talking about and working on the "big
> vision" stuff, but not to let it distract too much from the current
> focus of the group? We don't want to turn these people away from the
> group, because we have to know where we're headed in order to build
> technologies today that can grow into that future. Suggestions on how to
> frame this work would be very welcome.
> 

This again (I believe) relates to the lack of awareness about those technologies, efforts, principles and existing (related) uptake featured by parties (such  as google), and how these systems / methods / web3 relate to commerce.  

Will think more about the method, perhaps is there a way to test the premise that knowledge of rdf / distributed web3 tech; is actually a concern or consideration that needs to be attended to broadly.  


> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Thoughts? What are the other big problems that we're missing?
> 

Enterprise engagement models. Existing standards and patent pools likely exist.  Whilst the specifics allude me ATM, an engagement strategy is likely needed at some stage.  From foreigners to supporters, but how..

Any existing IPR is unlikely to be in a format that supports ldp.  To me, clear contributions are to be made to any willing participants / ipr related entities. 

The idea that there may be an ipr mine-field along the path somewhere, seems reasonable to me.  Even a proposed method for how this might be dealt with if the spec / group, obtains w3c working group status - might be well considered at this juncture.

> -- manu
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2014Apr/0066.html
> 
> -- 
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: The Worlds First Web Payments Workshop
> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/
>

Received on Friday, 11 April 2014 05:31:43 UTC