The W3C Credentials Community Group

Verifiable Claims and Digital Verification

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Credentials CG Telecon

Minutes for 2015-11-17

Agenda
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2015Nov/0019.html
Topics
  1. Current Status of Task Force Proposal
  2. Focus on Use Cases
  3. ToDo Items
Organizer
Kim Hamilton Duffy, Christopher Allen
Scribe
Matt Stone
Present
Matt Stone, Nate Otto, Manu Sporny, Alex Jackl, Shane McCarron, Dave Longley, Henry Story, Stuart Sutton, Brian Sletten, John Tibbetts, Gregg Kellogg, Chris Webber, Rob Trainer, Dmitriy Nesterkin, Viktor Haag, Richard Varn, David I. Lehn
Audio Log
Matt Stone is scribing.
Nate Otto: Manu, sorry I can't stay for more than a few minutes. I'm double booked. Only one item essential to update me on. I'd like to participate in the Task Force as the Badge Alliance, but the BA wants to wait to join as a W3C member until an official working group is approved. Have there been any updates on whether we can have prospective-but-non-current-members participating in the Task Force?
Nate Otto: Badge Alliance will join when the Working Group is created. We strongly believe in that.
Manu Sporny: Must be a W3C member to be a participant of the WG.
Nate Otto: Would rather not join at any point when the WG is not yet approved.
Manu Sporny: Must be a W3C member to be a participant of the IG also.
Matt Stone: How many of the 40 members are w3c members?
Manu Sporny: 17 Members today, 7 committd to join, 16 that are on the fence based on resource availability
Manu Sporny: Commitment is contingent on the creation of the credentials working group
Nate Otto: Cool, thanks for the update on membership. I'll drop off now and listen to the audio later. Support your position, manu! Good luck.

Topic: Current Status of Task Force Proposal

Manu Sporny: W3c staff suggested we create a new task force around creation of charter. this group suggested we invite the interested parties that are currently absent
Manu Sporny: Minutes suggest that there wasn't an understanding of what we're doing
Manu Sporny: We assert we are a neutral meeting place, and anyone is welcome.
Manu Sporny: W3c staff is concerned that relevant voices aren't being heard
Manu Sporny: Have 2 new proposals on table 1) task force on this community group to answer question in problem statement
Manu Sporny: Proposal to change term from credential to Verifiable Claim
Manu Sporny: W3c staff is concerned that we've already made decisions - change assertion to questions in Verifiable Claims Task Force
Manu Sporny: Invite facebook, paypal, amazon to discuss these question and identify overlap.
Manu Sporny: Discussed proposals w/ w3c staff. heavily circulated inside w3c. 11/23 meeting to discuss.
Manu Sporny: Issues as they stand now:
Manu Sporny: 1) If in web payments IG, will need legal involved for IPR consequences
Manu Sporny: Legal review could be quick or VERY lengthy
Manu Sporny: 2) If in community group, concern that it's not neutral. would essential keep the IPR question out of the mix
Manu Sporny: Works as long as we follow the questions and problem statements in the verifiable claims task force
Manu Sporny: We think option 2 is better, but seek blessing from w3c staff
Alex Jackl: Will you include a tag that indicates these notes, like "important - please read"
Matt Stone: Are we getting an invite to participate in these calls?
Manu Sporny: Maybe, chairs have to make the invites.
Shane McCarron: 10 AM Eastern
Manu Sporny: Who is interested in being on the call?
Yes from: Stone, Richard, Stuart (but unavailable)...
Manu Sporny: From w3c: digital signature and LD is a distraction - key thing we're doing that's not in ITF is credentials are user centric.
Manu Sporny: Makes it more private and more portable
Manu Sporny: W3c: strongest pushback is from OpenID Connect and SAML, what's different here? User Centric, not Service Centric
Manu Sporny: W3c is "the web is for everyone" and service centric isn't necessarily so.
Dave Longley: With user-centric credentials: credentials are linked to identities, not particular Web sites or services. Holders control which credentials to use and when. Credential consumers need only trust issuers, allowing holders to freely choose and swap out the services they employ to help them manage and share their credentials.
Henry Story: Consider as a key notion a way to make Linked Data a key concept - as a way for organziations and people to actually cooperate where this is no centralized control
Manu Sporny: Shouldn't compromise on LD, but not start there.
Manu Sporny: Tring to find a couple very deft and compelling arguments to validate the need for this work.
Henry Story: Makes sense.
Dave Longley: We need a standard, machine-readable data format for expressing identity credentials that can be extended with minimal coordination ... but need a better line of argumentation to demonstrate the power of that.
Henry Story: Have more tools now and big players, like IBM and Oracle so we have industry coming on our side, but understand the strategy to get the discussion going
Manu Sporny: Want to engage the nay-sayers to work through these qeuestions
Manu Sporny: Need these stakeholders to become allies, (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc)
Manu Sporny: Trying to keep this from becoming an adversarial process by engaging all concerned.
Matt Stone: Assuming we go this direction and bring these parties in - is it a facilitated meeting going through the list of questions - methodically and intentionally? [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Manu Sporny: Will continue to have thses meeting over the next couple of weeks. will do interviews w/ these stakeholders as they have time. will meet on demand.
Manu Sporny: We won't wait for Tuesday meetings - we'll be flexible...
Manu Sporny: Will compress as many as possible in Nov/Dec/Jan
Matt Stone: +1 From stone
Dave Longley: +1 To the proposal
Stuart Sutton: +1
Brian Sletten: +1 Insofar as I grok it from this feed
John Tibbetts: +1 For user-centricity
Manu will "write this up" and send it to appropriate mailing lists at W3C

Topic: Focus on Use Cases

Matt Stone: +1 For focus on User Centric from stone as well
Brian Sletten will start working with us on use cases with help of Dan Burnett
Shane McCarron: I am happy to help
Matt Stone: I'm willing to learn
Gregg Kellogg: I can help out
Alex Jackl: We are working on use cases in PESC as well so in the future I can begin helping introduce that

Topic: ToDo Items

Not ready this week yet though
John Tibbetts: For bblfish: I believe there's subtle reason why 'user' centricity (I'd almost call it entity-centricity) is uniquely enabled by Linked Data..so there's a tie-in. But you have to be LD-aware to appreciate it.
John Tibbetts: Yes, though I would emphasize cross organisational co-operation, as that is where linkability comes in as key. [scribe assist by Henry Story]
John Tibbetts: That is it is useful to have something user centric, but without linkability we are in the 1980ies PC era. [scribe assist by Henry Story]