Re: Suggested Revisions to Web Payments Charter

On 01/13/2014 07:16 PM, Joseph Potvin wrote:
> 1. The Goal section now has a specific and referenced statement of 
> the W3C process goal, with direct links to the appropriate process 
> sections of the W3C Process Guide.

I've gone through the document and updated to wiki link syntax. It's the
web, we should link text where we can. :P

> 2. Language relating to "patent-free" / "royalty-free": There *can* 
> be defensive patents in prototyped (and later reference 
> implementation) solutions

+1

> 3. On this list there's been some discussion of the word 
> "technologies". In these edits I used the word "solutions" instead.

No strong preference as long as we don't step on the words PayPal/eBay
and W3C didn't want us to use, namely: "standards" and "specification".
I will maintain that squatting on the word "specification" is
questionable, but we have more important things to discuss.

There were a number of process issues with the text changes you made
(you aren't reading the W3C Process correctly and made some suggestions
in there that are not open to us). Namely, publication of a document for
W3C Member submission is not open to this group (unless one of the
members of this group that is also a W3C member agrees to publish it as
a W3C Member Note). The only thing that /is/ open to this group is
publication of the documents we create as Final Specifications under the
Final Specification Agreement (which is a different process that applies
to Community Groups).

http://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/index.php?title=WebPaymentsCommunityGroupCharterProposal&diff=295&oldid=293

> 1. "exchanges of value" changed to "financial exchanges", since value
> has so many interpretations.  On this point I have a question, ... 
> Question: Would the Web Payments spec potentially handle barter? 
> Initially my hunch was that "choice of currency" in a transaction 
> could not include chickens or hours-of-effort as the units?

The specs already handle arbitrary currencies, and based on your
example, wheat, poultry, milk, and gold can be used as a currency as
they have intrinsic value. The exchange of these goods represent barter,
and the specs that we have right now are capable of representing these
sorts of exchanges between multiple parties. Here's an example:

{
   "@context": "https://w3id.org/payswarm/v1",
   "id": "http://payswarm.example.com/contracts/28394729347",
   "type": ["Transaction", "Contract"],
   ...
   "transfer":
   [
      {
         "type": "Transfer",
         "amount": "2.19",
         "unit": "litres",
         "currency": "cows-milk",
         "source": "https://example.or/i/jane/accounts/cows-milk",
         "destination": "https://example.com/i/bob/accounts/cows-milk",
         "comment": "Barter between bob and jane"
      },
      {
         "type": "Transfer",
         "amount": "10.75",
         "unit": "kilograms",
         "currency": "wheat",
         "source": "https://example.com/i/bob/accounts/wheat",
         "destination": "https://example.or/i/jane/accounts/wheat",
         "comment": "Barter between bob and jane"
      }
   ],
   ...
}

Changing it back to "exchanges of value".

http://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/index.php?title=WebPaymentsCommunityGroupCharterProposal&diff=297&oldid=295

> 2. Added to scope: * Methods to accommodate transaction currency 
> choice and single-currency/multi-currency price management in 
> association with listings.  << The wording here with "accommodate" 
> leaves flexible whether the detailed documentation and the 
> implementation specific functions might be inside or outside the Web 
> Payments spec. All the spec would do is "accommodate" these.

+1

> 3. Here a useful distinction between the work "technology" and the 
> word "solution". The text was: "Technologies that are vital for the 
> proper operation of the technologies listed above"  It now reads 
> "Technologies that are vital for the proper operation of the 
> solutions listed above..."  Technologies can implement solutions. 
> Solutions don't implement technologies. Or so I reckon...?

+1

> 4. The word "proprietary" is replaced with "restricted". This has 
> come up in other fora, and the language out there is slowly being 
> morphed toward greater precision. The point here is that source code 
> under free/libre/open licenses is still "proprietary" to the holder 
> of copyright title who has legal authority to issue the licenses.
> And ideas under a defensive patent (eg 
> http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/ ) are still "proprietary" to
> the holders of the patent.

+1

> 5. To the "out-of-scope" topics I've added: "The relative merits of 
> various currencies or units of account. (i.e. The focus of this 
> Community Group is on Web-based financial transaction methods with 
> any currencies or units of account as determined by users.)"

+1

Other changes:

Added links to all groups that need to be coordinated with:

http://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/index.php?title=WebPaymentsCommunityGroupCharterProposal&diff=298&oldid=297

Simplified Choosing a Chair language / added links to Transparency section:

http://www.w3.org/community/webpayments/wiki/index.php?title=WebPaymentsCommunityGroupCharterProposal&diff=302&oldid=298

-- manu

-- 
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 Tuesday, 14 January 2014 20:54:36 UTC