Re: A first draft of the future Web Payments Interest group is available for comments

Thanks Stephane, I did not explain my thinking in the marked-up
document. So I'll add here some info about my reasons on a few of my
suggested changes that did not meet with agreement. I'll reference and
reply to your comments:

RE: I believe it makes sense to illustrate with some examples the type
of payment instruments we are considering. But it should be clearly
mentionned that those are just examples.

My thinking was that if examples are given, they should be functional
examples, never trademark names. A W3C charter should be
vendor-neutral, and never be a de facto promotional vehicle for any
particular suppliers just because they are well-known incumbents. Also
the reference to "cryptocurrencies" takes a pre-emptive position on a
current legal controversy regarding their status. That does not seem
to be an appropriate position for W3C to take. Let the legislators and
courts work out what is and what is not a currency.

RE: In the success criteria, the importance is on coordinating
activities within W3C. Liaisons are in place to coordinate at the
group levels activities with non-W3C groups. The proposed change mix
the two and requires that members are active in non-W3C groups. I
propose to keep the separation clear (ie reject this proposal)

My suggestion is based on the idea of equivalency amongst interacting
and interdependent standards organizations. If the W3C would expect
members of non-W3C standards bodies to participate in its work on
areas of shared mandate, then the reverse should also hold. Otherwise
one's premise is that W3C groups are in a class all by themselves in
the standards world, where other bodies are presumed to have the
professional collegiality to participate in W3C's work in the areas of
shared mandate, but the members of the W3C would not respond in kind.
That seems to be an ungenerous stance, especially when it is the W3C
that is arriving into a space that is already active with several
foundational standards bodies.  Ideally there might be a set of
documents which summarize the interfaces of the respective mandates
and working relationships between the W3C IC and selected other bodies
that share part of a mandate, in the manner that the ITEF uses. Here
are two examples:
* Internet Engineering Task Force and International Telecommunication
Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector Collaboration
Guidelines http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6756
* The IEEE 802/IETF Relationship draft-iab-rfc4441rev-08
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iab-rfc4441rev-08

RE: concerning the role of the different parties, the proposed change
seems very specific with a very specific definition of attributes of
prices. Given the scope of the charter, i believe this is too
specific.

There's much work underway on "use cases". The stickman in any use
case diagram represents a role. To have have use case descriptions
without the specification of the associated roles would leave a
critical gap in the specifications. And to leave un-specfied which of
the roles have authority to determine the attributes of price would
leave an important gap for any payments system standard. Some of the
key complaints that people generally have about today's incumbent
hub&spoke payments intermediaries rest directly on this point, though
it's not expressed with the precision I propose to give it. Anytime an
intermediary applies its own percentage to handle a payment, this is
not a service fee (since it costs them exactly the same to handle $100
as $10,000). A percentage applied by an intermediary is in fact a
component OF the price. If that's to be permitted within a W3C
specification, then I argue that it must be explicit.  ...Yes, I do
understand this recommendation of mine is controversial due to the
fact that most of today's incumbents have in the past couple of
decades managed to get away with inserting themselves as participants
into price determination. The clear decision that faces the W3C, as I
explained in my written submission to the workshop (which the
reviewers agreed was an important point), is whether the new
specification will gloss over this matter, and thus quietly acquiesce
to payment intermediaties inserting themselves into price
determination as part of the payments process itself. Or, will the W3C
specification require that roles regarding price determination are
explicit? And if explicit, will the role descriptions in the W3C spec
provide a context for payment intermediaries to participate in the
determination of price, or not?  I'm afraid there's no way for W3C to
NOT take a position on this. It seems to me that what the W3C team has
expressed so far (in the interest of not bogging down the first stage
of achieving agreement on its intended standard) is a preference for
quiet acquiescence towards payment intermediaties unilaterally and
furtively inserting themselves into a part of price determination,
whether or not the parties to payment transactions invite them to do
so. This acquiescence would further cementing in one of the "deep
bugs" of the status quo.  In saying this, I want to apologise, since
it may appear that I am attempting to be hardline on the matter. On
the contrary, it's for these sorts of reasons I've been taking the
time to get to the root of payments law and ethics in general (eg
UNICTRAL's foundational work, amongst other sources).  Maybe someone
can suggest a diplomatic way that the issue I am raising can be
"parked" for a defined period (say, a year) so as not to delay the
first stage of achieving agreement on its intended standard, without
any de facto implication of acquiescence to this imposition by
payments intermediaries.

Joseph Potvin
The Opman Company

On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 4:52 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
> Thank Joseph.
> I've tried to extract the essence of your comments based on your edits.I've
> published them (as well as all other received to date) at
> https://www.w3.org/community/webpaymentsigcharter/wiki/Main_Page
>
> For each i've proposed a resolution. All further comments, as well as
> comments of the proposed changes are welcome.
>
> I will make a new version of the charter next week.
>
> Best
> Steph
>
> Le 26/05/2014 21:36, Joseph Potvin a écrit :
>>
>> Stephane et. al., I have posted a version of the text of the draft
>> charter with my suggested amendments in a PDF produced with "change
>> control" on. Possibly the email lists do not support attachments, so I
>> have placed the PDF on Google Drive, with access set to share with
>> anyone who has the link:
>>
>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz47kauZsx60R1RvVEJYRkhTNzQ/edit?usp=sharing
>>
>> Please let me know if you cannot access the file, and I can sent it
>> directly.
>>
>> Joseph Potvin
>> The Opman Company
>>
>> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear All,
>>>
>>> Following-up on my last email, I've just published a first draft of the
>>> future W3C Web Payments Interest Group (aka Web Payments Steering Group).
>>> The document is available at
>>> http://www.w3.org/2014/04/payments/webpayments_charter.html
>>>
>>> I've also just published short blog post to request feedback, see
>>>
>>> http://www.w3.org/community/webpaymentsigcharter/2014/05/15/first-draft-of-future-web-payments-interest-group-charter-published/
>>>
>>> We need your help to move this forwards:
>>> *All comments are welcome. You can answer this email, contact W3C team
>>> privately or join the Community group dedicated to the charter
>>> development
>>> (http://www.w3.org/community/webpaymentsigcharter/join ) to provide
>>> contribution. We will be able to make progress if the work items and the
>>> scope of this group is inline with your interest and expectations.
>>>
>>> *We need to increase our sphere of influence and involve more payment
>>> industry actors. W3C is well connected with Web and technology actors,
>>> but
>>> we are relatively new in the payment area. Please disseminate the charter
>>> in
>>> your network, or let us know who you believe we should engage with to
>>> discuss this charter first and then to work  on its implementation.
>>>
>>> Best
>>> Stephane
>>> --
>>> Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
>>> W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
>>> BP 93
>>> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
>>> France
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
> W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
> BP 93
> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
> France



-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
jpotvin@opman.ca
Mobile: 819-593-5983

Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2014 11:49:53 UTC