Re: Web Payments Telecon Minutes for 2014-02-19

On 19 February 2014 22:55, <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:

> Thanks to Joseph Potvin for scribing this week! The minutes
> for this week's Web Payments telecon are now available:
>
> https://web-payments.org/minutes/2014-02-19/
>
> Full text of the discussion follows for W3C archival purposes.
> Audio from the meeting is available as well (link provided below).
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Web Payments Community Group Telecon Minutes for 2014-02-19
>
> Agenda:
>   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2014Feb/0092.html
> Topics:
>   1. Web Payments Workshop
>   2. Web Payments Introductory Documents
>   3. Update on the Google Summer of Code 2014
>   4. Web Commerce API
>   5. Persona and Web Identity Spec
> Resolutions:
>   1. Start an official vote on adopting the Web Commerce API as a
>     work item for the Web Payments Community Group.
> Action Items:
>   1. Manu to ask Web Payments Workshop Program Committee to list
>     potential BoF venues.
> Chair:
>   Manu Sporny
> Scribe:
>   Joseph Potvin
> Present:
>   Joseph Potvin, Manu Sporny, Brent Shambaugh, Dave Longley, David
>   I. Lehn
> Audio:
>   https://web-payments.org/minutes/2014-02-19/audio.ogg
>
> Joseph Potvin is scribing.
> Manu Sporny:  Natasha may join in later to talk about the
>   Web/Mobile payments task force
> Joseph Potvin:  Is there a quick update on any organizational
>   things based on Web Payments Workshop. [scribe assist by Manu
>   Sporny]
>
> Topic: Web Payments Workshop
>
> Manu Sporny:  Paper reviews are due by the end of March. I think
>   we're currently overbooked for the workshop - lots and lots of
>   interest.
> Joseph Potvin:  Could we have a BoF? Would they be against it in
>   principle? If there are any side meetings, could someone locate a
>   nice cafe nearby if it doesn't interfere w/ the main agenda.
>   [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  A BoF would be great in principles, but the venue
>   doesn't support it. Side meetings at some cafe nearby? Maybe we
>   can find a venue adjacent to the Palais - pub, cafe. [scribe
>   assist by Manu Sporny]
>
> ACTION: Manu to ask Web Payments Workshop Program Committee to
>   list potential BoF venues.
>
> Manu Sporny:  The workshop is single track, nobody is going to
>   want to leave the venue for a BoF. [scribe assist by Brent
>   Shambaugh]
>
> Topic: Web Payments Introductory Documents
>
> Manu Sporny:  We've not had a number of in-depth conversations
>   with people in economics, writing,  programming that want to get
>   involved, but not sure how.
> Manu Sporny:  We have lots of specs, hard to locate an entry
>   point - we need better documentation
> Manu Sporny:  We don't  have an overview or fucntional flow
>   document - that could be what they work on.
> Manu Sporny:  Need this for entry-points as well as big-picture,
>   those could be other work items.
> Manu Sporny:  Any other ideas?  We have 3 volunteers, need an
>   outline, the volunteers can fill it out
> Manu Sporny:  Brent, weren't you one of the volunteers for this?
> Brent Shambaugh:  Going thorugh things right now, and will try to
>   map this.
> Manu Sporny:  Ok great, we'll do that as a starting point, do you
>   want us to draft an outline? [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
> Brent Shambaugh:  Would it help if i just went ahead and drafted
>   the outline? [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
> Manu Sporny:  If you could draft an outline based on what you've
>   read that would be very helpful, you have a fresh set of eyes on
>   this and we've been too entrenched for too long. [scribe assist
>   by Dave Longley]
> Manu Sporny:  That would be great if you could do that with your
>   new perspective, and then just post that to the mailing list and
>   we'll discuss it [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
> Manu Sporny:  Anything else on the intro docs? [scribe assist by
>   Dave Longley]
>
> Topic: Update on the Google Summer of Code 2014
>
> Manu Sporny:  We submitted the CG as a mentor organization to the
>   Google Summer of Code
> Manu Sporny:
>   https://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/GSoC2014ProjectIdeas
> Manu Sporny:  Wide variety of possible topics, 3 categories
>   (novices, intermediate, advanced)
> Manu Sporny:  Students can apply, salary is about $5500 to pay
>   for expenses to work on the project over the summer
> Manu Sporny:  All WPCG projects are open source, open standard
> Manu Sporny:  We just wait now  to see if we're approved.
> David I. Lehn:
>   https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2014
> Manu Sporny:  GSoC organizations will be announced on Feb 24.
> Manu Sporny:  If accepted, we need to make some noise about our
>   projects so we can recruit students.
>
> Topic: Web Commerce API
>
> Manu Sporny:
>   https://web-payments.org/specs/source/web-commerce-api/
> Manu Sporny:  This is the resurrected Mozpay API that we covered
>   a few weeks ago.
> Manu Sporny:  Based on our consultation, the workshop focus may
>   be on payments request and digital receipts, this spec describes
>   how we can do that.
> Manu Sporny:  This allows all proprietary player to stay as-is,
>   but also new entrants into the marketplace.
> Manu Sporny:  The approach seems to work for proprietary payment
>   providers, cryptocurrency wallets, and open payment solutions,
>   but it is not yet an official work item
> Manu Sporny:  We would need to vote on this as a WPCG work item
> Joseph Potvin:  How did we manage to leave it off the charter
>   vote? [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Manu Sporny:  Mozilla retracted it before we voted on the
>   charter, we resurrected it a week after we voted on the charter.
>   It was just bad timing, which is funny because this could be the
>   most important spec we do.
> Manu Sporny:  It was too browser specific at first, but others
>   determined that it could be made generic, which we did.
> Manu Sporny:  Mozilla is okay with using it again, and will
>   decide later on support.
> Manu Sporny:  Can be later implemented in browsers, doesn't
>   require browser buy-in at first.
> Dave Longley:  I'm in support of including it as a work item.
>
> PROPOSAL:  Start an official vote on adopting the Web Commerce
>   API as a work item for the Web Payments Community Group.
>
> Joseph Potvin: +1
> Dave Longley: +1
> Manu Sporny: +1
> Brent Shambaugh: +1
> David I. Lehn: +1
>
> RESOLUTION: Start an official vote on adopting the Web Commerce
>   API as a work item for the Web Payments Community Group.
>
> Brent Shambaugh:  I'm concerned about there being so much focus
>   on Bitcoin that PaySwarm may be lost in the excitement, what does
>   PaySwarm provide that Bitcoin doesn't? [scribe assist by Manu
>   Sporny]
> Manu Sporny:  Basically, it standardizes the payment process for
>   the web. The payment request and the response format. Bitcoin
>   doesn't do that. It also promotes a solid identity solution for
>   the Web, which Bitcoin doesn't have either. How to list assets
>   for sale in a decentralized way, how to provide machine-readable
>   offers of sale (listings). How to do digital receipts, there's a
>   lot that it does that Bitcoin doesn't because PaySwarm is more
>   high-level than these other protocols. It deals w/ the commerce
>   layer, not the payment clearing layer. [scribe assist by Manu
>   Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  Right now, there is no standard way to initiate a
>   payment and know that the payment happened, that's basically what
>   PaySwarm provides. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
>
> Topic: Persona and Web Identity Spec
>
> Manu Sporny: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Identity/Persona_AAR
> Manu Sporny:  Mozilla put out something confusing, an After
>   Action Review, which they typically only do after they tombstone
>   a product.
> Manu Sporny:  Idea was a simple web login mechanism, things going
>   well, pushed it for a while, but then leaders left Mozilla, and
>   now there is a worry that Mozilla is going to pull the rest of
>   the developers off of the project. I don't know anything yet, but
>   it seems suspicious and is typically what Mozilla does before
>   they wind down a project.
> Manu Sporny:  This is an issue for Web Payments because we
>   depends on Persona for a clean login solution.
>

I dont think Persona has died just yet.  From reading the mozilla list it
seems to be alive, although there was some confusion.

Is Persona a hard dependency for web payments?

I was under the impression that web payments had a universal identity
system that could be compatible with Persona but did not depend on it.


> Manu Sporny:  The customer's payments provider is identified with
>   the login.
> Manu Sporny:   If the technology is orphaned, we'll need an
>   alternative solution.
> Manu Sporny:  Mozilla probably has a continuity plan, but we just
>   don't know what it is yet.
> Manu Sporny:  We've elaborated in the Web Identity spec a bit
>   here: https://web-payments.org/specs/source/web-identity/
> Manu Sporny:  Scroll here to see the changes:
>   https://web-payments.org/specs/source/web-identity/#a-typical-identity
> Manu Sporny:  ID is composed of data, and some assertions (some
>   3rd party validates your data, with a digital signature)
> Manu Sporny:   Identity validation is very important to trusted
>   payments, and login is very important to ease of use. We also
>   need to talk about the name.
> Manu Sporny:   Web Identity and WebID are different specs, the
>   differences are confusing some folks.
> Manu Sporny:  The proposal would be to change the title of the
>   "Web Identity" spec to "Identity Assertions" [scribe assist by
>   Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  If the spec goes to "identity assertions", is
>   this an assertion validation spec in general? Maybe we should
>   take "identity" out of the title? [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  We want to be careful about scope creep, the
>   general technology can be used for assertions on just about
>   anything. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  I wouldn't expand the scope of work, but the
>   choice of the name doesn't mean we need to increase the scope.
>   [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  Maybe we could say "Entity Assertions"? Maybe
>   identifier for an entity? Depends on where we want to go with
>   that. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  Identity could get us into problems w/ metadata
>   that goes into identity. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  Web Assertions is okay - how to make assertions on
>   things on the Web. Maybe people could say that assertions are too
>   broad? Validation is the wrong word?  [scribe assist by Manu
>   Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  It's more like you're verifying / validating?
>   [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  Wouldn't you get Identity Assertions anyway?
>   [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Manu Sporny:  We could say that this is just about identity -
>   "Identity Assertions" and say that others can use this same
>   approach for other technologies. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  Yeah, I guess we can do that. [scribe assist by
>   Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  Does this have to be limited to a person? What
>   about a corporation? [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  A thing?
> Manu Sporny:  Yes, included
> David I. Lehn: bike Shed... resource assertions?  does that fit
>   into the semantic terminology better?
> Dave Longley:  Yes, we're talking about "Entity Assertions"
>   [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  But we may just want to use a more understandable
>   name for the spec title. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  Entities with URL
> Dave Longley:  I think identity assertions says what the spec is
>   for? [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Brent Shambaugh:  How does the identity data get handled?
> Manu Sporny:  We say there has to be a way to read/write data to
>   that entity, and to request that info
> Manu Sporny:  Data lives with your service provider, somewhwere
>   on the web, document you are served, for example
> Manu Sporny:  Yeah, so for example -
>   https://dev.payswarm.com/i/manu [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Manu Sporny:  The spec outlines how the requests for the info are
>   issued and answered, under what conditions
> Manu Sporny:  The person who owns that identity controls the
>   access to the entity's info
> Manu Sporny:  So do we have a proposal to rename the spec?
> David I. Lehn:  I still think the "Identity Assertions" name is
>   strange... seems like there are a lot of pieces to this. [scribe
>   assist by Manu Sporny]
> Joseph Potvin:  I think that it might be bad that people
>   associated "identity" with "people". [scribe assist by Manu
>   Sporny]
> Manu Sporny:  I think that's a good thing. [scribe assist by Manu
>   Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  I think that's an advantage... isn't it?  [scribe
>   assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  A more generic name "Entity Assertion" will be
>   more difficult. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  We could talk about "Identity Exchange" or some
>   other synonym to "read/write"? [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  The spec does provide more than that - it's a
>   readable / writable identity. Part of that is being able to write
>   stuff to the identity. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> David I. Lehn:  What's the scope of the spec? [scribe assist by
>   Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  Creating a readable/writable identity where pieces
>   of that identity can be modified. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  There's nothing to say that people can add things
>   to do this in another way. [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Dave Longley:  We should get the message across about "Read,
>   write, verify identity" [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
> Brent Shambaugh: We Could do Agent Identity or Agent Assertion,
>   is that vague?
> Manu Sporny:  Yeah, anything w/ "Agent" typically means
>   "software" wrt. Web technologies, so it might be confusing.
> Manu Sporny:  Ok, we're out of time and we don't have consensus.
>   Let's think about this offline, perhaps something better will
>   come to us.
>
>
>
>
>