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

+1 for starting an official vote on adopting the Web Commerce API as a work item.

-----Original Message-----
From: msporny@digitalbazaar.com [mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2014 5:56 AM
To: Web Payments CG
Subject: Web Payments Telecon Minutes for 2014-02-19

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.
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.

Received on Friday, 21 February 2014 02:59:46 UTC