Re: VOTE: Adopt Web Commerce API as work item?

I voted not to work on the web commerce spec as is because I thought it specified an “all in one” transaction endpoint similar to navigator.mozPay() which I thought was too inflexible. I think I was looking at an older spec or perhaps I was probably confusing specs though :)

I just caught up with the current spec at https://web-payments.org/specs/source/web-commerce/

I am still a little iffy about it because I think each part (payswarm authority, asset, listing, and contract) are too tightly coupled with each other. Maybe that’s necessary for everything to work but I think it will be hard for implementors to jump into it if they have to implement everything at once.

To be more specific, I think Mozilla could be interested in implementing *just* the contract part to replace our receipt spec: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Apps/WebApplicationReceipt As it is, a receipt is just a way to cryptographically prove that someone owns something. It would be nice to retain that level of abstraction in a web commerce contract so that we can apply it to, say, our own custom receipt verifier.

I need to look at it in more detail to see if it’s possible to re-use just the contract spec for our purposes. One use case we need to implement is subscriptions. To do this we’d either have to modify our existing web application receipt or start working with the web commerce spec. Since the web commerce spec already has a concept of subsciptions it would be nice to start working with it.

Kumar

On Feb 22, 2014, at 8:21 PM, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:

> This vote is being held to determine whether or not the Web Commerce API
> should be included as a work item for the Web Payments Community Group.
> Any Web Payments Community Group member can vote and will have until
> March 8th to submit their vote. The decision will be made by a simple
> majority (>50%) vote. Here's the link to the poll:
> 
> http://www.addpoll.com/msporny/survey/adopt-web-commerce-api
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Background
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> The Web Commerce API is a proposal to standardize the payment request
> and a digital receipt format. The technology is designed such that
> closed payment solutions (like PayPal, Google Wallet, etc.) and more
> open payment solutions (Bitcoin, Ripple, PaySwarm) can use the same
> mechanism to initiate and complete a payment.
> 
> You can view the discussion that led to this vote here:
> 
> https://web-payments.org/minutes/2014-02-19/#topic-4
> 
> This API enables a web application to initiate payment for a product or
> service by calling a navigator.transact.pay() method. The implementation
> of this feature is expected to be provided by a JavaScript polyfill at
> first, and if deployment is successful, native browser implementations
> will eventually surface to enhance usability and transaction security.
> 
> Specifically, the proposal would standardize the payment request format
> (payment initiation) and the digital receipt format (proof of purchase).
> 
> https://web-payments.org/specs/source/web-commerce-api/
> 
> -- 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 Monday, 10 March 2014 16:09:51 UTC