The W3C Credentials Community Group

Verifiable Claims and Digital Verification

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Credentials CG Telecon

Minutes for 2019-04-23

Andrew Hughes is scribing.

Topic: Agenda review

Topic: IP Note, call notes

Topic: Introductions and re-introductions

Christopher Allen: Anyone new on today’s call?
Christopher Allen: Reintroductions? Anyone?
Lionel Wolberger: Hi!
… engaged with ccg for a while - passionate about privacy and identity
… a founder - Platin - location based startup
… working on a machine learning project at the moment

Topic: Announcements

Christopher Allen: Are the DID Spec calls continuing this week?
… <yes>
Christopher Allen: Next week’s ccg meeting is cancelled due to Internet Identity Workshop in Mountain View
Christopher Allen: Www.internetidentityworkshop.com if you are interested in attending as well
Heather Vescent: I do. I will get it.
Christopher Allen: Is there a URL for the DID hackathon?
… DIF hackathon to work on interop topics
Heather Vescent: Via Daniel Buchner: "The DIF F2F is set for the space at the Moffett Tower in Sunnyvale (https://www.google.com/maps?q=1020+Enterprise+Way+Sunnyvale+California+94089+), from 12-5pm, with light food arriving at ~12:30. We will likely hold a gathering for more low-key discussion at a TBD happy hour location in downtown MV or SV at ~6pm."
Christopher Allen: RWOT 9 September 3-6 in Prague - Eventbrite signup coming soon
… www.weboftrust.info for more details - please consider attending!
Kaliya Young: The call for papers is out
Lionel Wolberger: Mydata is late September
Kaliya Young: ID2020 has something happening UNGA week in NYC
Markus Sabadello: https://mydata2019.org/ in September
Christopher Allen: Please add URLs to the notes if you have more events we should track
Manu Sporny: Status on DID WG Charter discussions?
Kim Hamilton Duffy: I can answer that Manu
Christopher Allen: Chairs waiting for things to settle down a bit and dive in after IIW more
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Small group has been meeting to discuss DID WG charter issues.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: At the AC meeting last month, met with Tony Nadalin to discuss issues
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Have categorized the issues
… some easy issues, some hard issues that need further discussion
… making progress, optimistic that there will be a reasonable outcome
Dan Burnett: We are creating pull requests for all the issues - for group review - more efficient this way
Christopher Allen: Check the issues list link above for discussion scheduling
Joe Andrieu: Discussion about the next TPAC
Joe Andrieu: Wants input from the group on what we should do
Manu Sporny: Never hurts to get on the schedule to reserve space and cancel if necessary
… opportunity to keep the W3C membership apprised of what’s coming down the pike
… for example progress update on the DID WG startup
… also verifiable credentials status, interop testing, etc. An opportunity to avoid surprising the Members
ACTION: manu to add an issue in the repo to plan for TPAC activities

Topic: Open issues

Christopher Allen: Any issues that are not in the list already?
Christopher Allen: The chairs manage ccg meeting agendas from the issues list
Christopher Allen: Would like to have a report out from a company in May on the status of their code, roadmap, etc
… looking for volunteers to do this

Topic: ABNF Task Force

Christopher Allen: ABNF task force has been meeting on Thursdays to work through issuses - report out now
… the pull request is being updated from the discussions - take a look
Markus Sabadello: Weekly Meetings to discuss did-spec and did-resolution
… detailed discussions about meaning of resolution, syntax, ABNF grammar, dereferencing
… for DIDs
… the pull requests contains a new grammer for did-url plus explanations of the syntax
… the primary contruct is “matrix parameters”
… A list of key-value pairs, semi-colon delimited. follows the naked DID. Processing instructions are there
… content-references, keys, hashlinks, other stuff that influences the resolution process
Markus Sabadello: There is a talbe in the PR with a potential initial list of parameters
… some are generic/universal, independent of the did method: e.g. service selection, key selection
… all methods support DID documents
… then some method-specific parameters
… e.g. parameters that only make sense to a single method
… also parameters that are supported by a subset of methods e.g. versioning
… to resovle a historic did document - not all DID methods support this but if they do they will have to do it consistently
Christopher Allen: Has there been discussion about the line between DID resolvers versus direct DID access - will everyone use a resolver?
Markus Sabadello: Depends - a DID resolver resovles - independent of the location of the software. Takes DID URL as an input and dereferences it
Drummond Reed: There should be no dependency between the DID spec and any specific way of implementing resolution.
Markus Sabadello: The PR is open - not ready for merging yet. HT to Amy and Yancy for the contributions and processing
… the specific parameters - it’s very early days - should not delay the PR for those
… focus on the grammar
Drummond Reed: We want to take advantage of IIW - anyone who has comments on that PR specificallly - please get them in this week - Drummond is planning sessions next week to discuss them
Christopher Allen: Are there areas that need focus now?
Drummond Reed: THe ABNF is 10 lines long
Drummond Reed: Markus has created a parser for people to try
Markus Sabadello: Experimental parser based on PR: http://parser.uniresolver.io/
Drummond Reed: Please feedback on the parameter names
Drummond Reed: DID method authors should review the parameters list to ensure that what _you_ need support for is included
Drummond Reed: There is a call this Thursday
Jonathan Holt: Asks about sub-method - seems to be missing in the PR
Markus Sabadello: It is there - part of the method-specifc ID <<@@>>
Drummond Reed: Calling out sub-methods was tried to attempt clarity - but reverted because it was clearer not calling them out. More examples needed to clarify sub-method names
Markus Sabadello: Question was about sub method names e.g. did:method:submethod:sub2:12345657. this is supported by the ABNF by the "method-specific-id" rule
Drummond Reed: After getting to your method name, after the colon it is up to the DID method to specify/parse
Joe Andrieu: In the descriptive section of the PR it would be good to explain some of the semantics - e.g. ABNF is only about syntax
… are there other semantic expectations about the names?
… others will have the same questions abou thow the method-specific-id breaks down for sub-methods etc
Drummond Reed: Yes.
ACTION: drummond to add examples that cover sub-names etc
Christopher Allen: Getting clarity on how to close out the ABNF and matrix parameters - HT to task force
… we appreciate the work
Christopher Allen: Wants to ensure the other topics like did-resolver are being addressed too
Drummond Reed: The goal was to get to a complete draft before IIW for ABNF, did-resolution
… there’s a long list of open issues - calls will continue after IIW
Markus Sabadello: One of the next calls is to do a draft of the did-resolution spec - not much content yet
… did-resolution is completely dependent on the ABNF syntax - once that is consensus, the did-resolution spec is faster
Joe Andrieu: Where should we discuss the requirement (if any) for a method to support any concept of ‘decentralized'
… several opinions being expressed
Drummond Reed: +1 To discussion this topic at IIW
… thinks Decentralization is too hard to define
… but there’s something in ‘the DID Document is provably under the control of the DID controller’
Drummond Reed: +1 To the idea of focusing on "provably under the control of the DID controller".
Christopher Allen: +1 Provably under the control DID controller
Christopher Allen: Any high-level insights/concerns today? to setup next discussions?
Markus Sabadello: Last week we heard from Heather and Karn that many in the community don’t understand how decisions are being made… there was a PR that proposed small changes in the abstract, but in reality was proposing a very big change in orientation re decentralization…
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Markus, which document are you referring to?
Christopher Allen: Contributing a PR is not a decision - still needs to be discussed
Markus Sabadello: I meant this PR, its title looks very innocent, but it's really proposing to radically change a few key properties of DIDs: https://github.com/w3c-ccg/did-spec/pull/179
Jonathan Holt: In-person discussion maybe: Being in control over your random numbr generator is important - because smart cards are not very smart
… the article is about weak keys in ethereum - many use the number “1”
Jonathan Holt: Did:ipid:jonathanholt.me
Jonathan Holt: Also: publishing the DID to somewhere you trust. IPLD method uses DNS record
Dmitri Zagidulin: Wants a better idea of the status of adding did:web
… is this holding up the acceptance of the work item
Drummond Reed: I'm willing to discuss the proposed "did:web:" method at IIW.
Markus Sabadello: Proposal for DID web method work item is here: https://github.com/w3c-ccg/community/issues/65
Christopher Allen: Philosophically, ccg wants to accept work items that are not necessarily the consenus of the group
Kaliya Young: Heather shared about the survey and how new people and those who are not technical are not sure really how to show up and participate. Then the answer is to do Pull requests on GitHub? Is Git hub friendly for non-technical people No. its fine to say all this - and yes clearly GitHub is the lingua franka of tech. So how are people who are new being walked through GighUb and supported making their first contributions? Just asking.
… but we do want sufficient momentum to ensure the work items get completed
Kaliya Young: If we are serious about listening to What Heather said.. then is this really the path?
Christopher Allen: Responding to randomness/sources
Kaliya Young: Nothing I said needs to be addressed verbally I'm more making a comment in the background.
… has been working on “smart custody” project - re how do you secure the secrets
… deep dive into procedures, documents
… link is to best practices to secure keys
… if interested, please connet with Chrstopher
Manu Sporny: Returning to concern about PR 179 - how to get more people involved in decision making process
… the typical way the editors have been working - have calls like ccg, editors try to incorporate input into a PR, if not serious pushback then merge, otherwise more discussion
Kim Hamilton Duffy: +1; I do not see this PR as problematic/insidious as suggested
… PR was intended to be an editorial change
… but it turned out to be bigger
Kim Hamilton Duffy: I think it's totally normal part of discussion and not evidence of some conspiracy
Manu Sporny: A recent challenge is PRs are stacking up - many many calls happening so hard to keep everyone in-sync with the discussions
… should we have the ‘decentralization’ discussion at ccg?
Markus Sabadello: Should ensure that PRs are named accurately
… PR 179 name doesn’t completely reflect the content of the PR, so it might be hard for community to spot that it’s important
Manu Sporny: I just changed the title to say "Update abstract to build bigger tent / weaken "decentralization" requirement" [scribe assist by Manu Sporny]
Kaliya Young: There is also questions about how DIF and this group work together more and coordinate and how all the work going on in all the forums stay in sync.
Kaliya Young: I nominate Infominer :)
Kaliya Young: He helped me a lot with navigating GitHub and would be a great human to have more involved in this.
Christopher Allen: Need more volunteers to help with training people on github 
Kim Hamilton Duffy: We may not have time to get to me on the q, but just an FYI that next meeting we'll do a code of conduct refresher. The W3C one is stale but being rebooting with some positive work environment suggestions, e.g. assuming good intentions/asking for clarification
Kaliya Young: Gottago
Justin_R: The decentralization debate does belong in part here - the discussion is unearthing some interesting asumptions that people have regarding this work
Manu Sporny: +1 To Justin_R
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Justin_R note that we desperately need volunteers to help with the non-tech bridge. Please help with this since you have interest
Heather Vescent: There needs to be a structure for whomever volunteers to be actually successful and not sabotaged.
… the discussion needs more air and light
Drummond Reed: +1
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Achughes -- please volunteer with Justin!
Christopher Allen: Meeting adjourned - please use the list for questions etc
Ken Ebert: Leave