The W3C Credentials Community Group

Verifiable Claims and Digital Verification

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Credentials CG Telecon

Minutes for 2020-01-07

Manu Sporny is scribing.
Alexis: How do I join the call?
Joe Andrieu: Welcome to the CCG's first call of 2020.
Joe Andrieu: We want to look at a few things today, look at 2020 Roadmap, prioritizations, not going to dive yet into charter/election stuff, but will do that this month.
Joe Andrieu: Will talk about where DID WG, VCWG, Educational Credentials Task Force, update on DID Resolution and where that's going. New work item proposal - credential issuer/vierifier APIs.
Joe Andrieu: That's the short form for our agenda, feel free to jump in if you want to add/modify Agenda.
Joe Andrieu: IP Note: Anyone can participate, but if you have not formally joined the CG, limit your contributions to not include substantive technical contributions - subject to moderation by the chairs - please join the group it's lightweight and free. We want to make sure our IP is clear here so we can make the work into global standards.
Joe Andrieu: We use IRC for these calls, manage the queue there, use q+ to add yourself. Please type "present+" to note that you're attending the meeting.
Joe Andrieu: It let's our minute taking system note that you attended.
Joe Andrieu: If you don't have IRC, just ask to be added to the queue via voice.
Joe Andrieu: Use IRC, we'll get you in the queue - want to maintain single conversation, not backchannel stuff.

Topic: Introductions and Reintroductions

Joe Andrieu: Anyone new to the call?
Darrell Duane: Newbie here
Carl DiClementi: Hi, Carl DiClementi, work at Factom - working on Silicon Valley Innovation Program projects - also have Sam Barnes here with me as well.
Alexis: Anyone recommends a voip client for ubuntu to join the call?
Sam Smith: Hi Sam, been at Factom for two years - working on identity/DID related code for Factom Blockchain.
Wayne_chang: Hi, work at ConsenSys, work on DID stuff, also at DIF, want to avoid duplication of efforts.
Bouma: Hi Tim Bouma at Canadian Treasury Board, working on Pan Canadian trust framework, going to get more from our side to join.
AnilJohn: Hi Anil John, from Technical Director of Silicon Valley Innovation Program, one of the work items today has to do with our interest so joining the call today.
Juan_caballero: Hi Juan Caballero, I am working for a lot of different folks, but primarily for Spherity, happy to be here, want to make sure I have the story right.

Topic: Announcements

Joe Andrieu: DID WG face to face meeting is coming up
Joe Andrieu: January 29-31, 2020 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dan Burnett: We welcome observers at our F2F meetings - if you want to observe because you are not in the WG, please contact Dan Burnett or Brent Zundel - the Chairs.
Dan Burnett: If you attend as an observer, we ask that you not make substantive technical contributions due to IP reasons, but we would love to have you there to get use cases from you, introduce you to the work, etc. Many end up becoming DID WG members.
Joe Andrieu: Rebooting the Web of Trust (#RWOT10) is 16 March - 20 March, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Joe Andrieu: The Eventbrite is now live
Joe Andrieu: A couple of important things to note, the event starts Monday night - start the discussion around topic papers at a Monday night event, more details on that, make sure you're there Monday night...
Joe Andrieu: The early bird deadline is coming up fast - attempting to streamline, but behind the curve. Early bird paper submissions i January 17th, topic papers should be shorter.
Joe Andrieu: So 1-2 pages, submit to Github, all information is in the Eventbrite page.
Alexis: Dlongley, thanks!
Joe Andrieu: We will be offering scholarships and travel stipends, apply if you think you bring a unique perspective to the conversation.
Joe Andrieu: So, everyone has 10 days to get those papers in.
Joe Andrieu: We do have dedicated DID calls on Thursdays Resuming in January starting 1-2:30PM PT / 20:00-21:30 UTC
Joe Andrieu: We use Zoom for those calls https://zoom.us/j/7077077007
Joe Andrieu: We are going to be closing out action items and work items... action need to see activity soon or we're going to close items.
Markus Sabadello: Yes, about weekly DID Resolution calls, we will resume them this week 60 minute calls.

Topic: Progress on Action Items

Joe Andrieu: VC chairs to send email about CCG to old VC-WG list, including asking for volunteers -- was this done?
Dan Burnett: Can't remember?
Joe Andrieu: Maybe we can ask for volunteers - I'll flag you Dan.
Joe Andrieu: SIP not working -- some people have had issues, but now have onsip working, Amy said she'd write something up, don't know if she's on the call.
Manu Sporny: She sent her regrets.
Joe Andrieu: I just walked someone through the process - they used onsip on their mobile, couldn't help them on mobile. Maybe we can round the corner w/ Amy.
Joe Andrieu: Discuss registries meta-process; what are next steps?
Kim Hamilton Duffy: I noted that the AB has been working on this offline - ChristopherA said we're interested - AB has been iterating, discussing offline, draft proposal for registry process is interesting in that issue.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: It seems like a good opportunity to review what W3C AB has done - I think this will save us a fair amount of duplicate effort - we can just call out differences w/ W3C General rules... CCG might just have specific rules for registries, general note that we should be able to update registries metaprocess simply now that they've done that.
Joe Andrieu: If you are an editor, please look at that link. See if it breaks anything wrt. how you run that registry.
Alexis: I got linphone but still can't join, not sure whether I need to do anything else
Manu Sporny: We did engage w/ W3C Registries TF at W3C TPAC 2019 - very aligned with how we run, don't expect major changes.
Joe Andrieu: Ok, Registry Editors please check into it.
Joe Andrieu: JWK cryptosuite specifications - not a lot of progress, unless we see action, let's close it out.
Manu Sporny: It's not clear how to join from onsip.com [scribe assist by Alexis]
Christopher Allen: We have authority over the cryptosuites - we're trying to close out these items that are either incorrect or outdates or whatever. We have the problem of JSON-LD description that is DVCG is way out of date and yet people are referring to it.
Orie Steele: +1 To fix this stuff!
Christopher Allen: We have all kinds of discussions about usage of JWTs, but there are no cryptosuite descriptions for DVCG - so we have stubs, if we don't see progress on either of these, we'll archive and say "DO NOT USE", no replacement.
Carl DiClementi: +1 As well
Christopher Allen: I'm very disappointed in this, it's causing me headaches - running into others that want to do stuff, telling them not to look at the documents.
Christopher Allen: This is a new year, time to call it.
Alexis: I was defeated on this battle, the link for the onsip app asks for a password and it's very late now
Manu Sporny: I'm fine with closing some of the issues down. The challenge here is that people haven't been doing the work or it's being done in some places and not others. We haven't been doing things in the spec sphere but have been in the implementation sphere. I would be very concerned with closing everything down. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: Telling people that there is no JWT or LD Proof mechanism is not accurate. The implementations are there and have been for years. The challenge is getting someone to write the spec to make it in line with the implementations. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: I'm fine with the group saying "We're not going to work on this stuff anymore" as long as everyone understands that work continues outside of this group on implementations outside of it. Eventually someone will get to the specs. But the VC/DID work is higher priority and this stuff is low on the list. It's not a matter of the technology not working, it's that the community priority isn't high enough to up date the specs. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: It's going to get worse with EDV spec work, etc. which will knock these specs down again. It's not a very hard spec to write, but everyone is up to their neck in work right now. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Joe Andrieu: Both of these issues are valuable - spec related work - one of the things we want to do is move this from implementers wanting to do this in their own world vs. working on it out in the open.
Joe Andrieu: What I'd like to propose - if we're trying to create a WG - the CCG has incubated specs that become WGs, but it's not happening here. Let's get a proposed charter into the CG - or someone other than this group is going to pick up the baton.
Joe Andrieu: I would support a TF to support a WG, but we need to do something for this languaging stuff.
Christopher Allen: I would be happy w/ deleting the specs and pointing to JSON-LD example that Digital Bazaar gave us and contact person is Dave Longley.
Christopher Allen: There is nobody to go to, nobody to point to, no implementation listed to point them to - if it ended up being 5 lines, JWT, repo that generated it, it would be better than current state which is wrong and is hurting us w/ new people coming in.
Orie Steele: I'm one of these people that wants to not see these registries marked as unusable, but also recognize that ... Manu's right, the spec work isn't getting done... these specs are floating around in many different repos, need to crawl across many different repos, looking at commit dates, ancient commits.
Orie Steele: I'm in favor of marking anything that's stale as not supported, for sake of clarity to community... I'm late to the whole party, don't understand difference between DVCG and CCG, but would like to see all these registries in one place.
Orie Steele: I'd love to see them in one place instead of different repos.
Orie Steele: It's much easier if they're all in one place, mark each repo that's separate, unsupported, and move ones that we care about, continue to maintain into one location.
Orie Steele: I think there need to be individuals that are points of contact for them, whether each item is supported. I want to help to the extent to which I can.
Dave Longley: Thanks, Orie!
Dmitri Zagidulin: A couple of words about the specs - clarify that there is definitely ongoing activity on at least LD parts of the specs - we have a couple of problems, one is keeping the specs up to date, just a matter of eyeballs and effort.
Christopher Allen: (In fact, the DID context and signing isn't even in their charter, same with VC)
Dmitri Zagidulin: The other is jurisdiction - with DID Context, which repo and which W3C group gets to host it... context is in limbo, kinda in CCG archive DID spec but not in DID WG, and that's part of the friction that people are mentioning about registries. Several of the contexts are in limbo, need to understand where they're being hosted, whteher we're going to version them.
Dmitri Zagidulin: Because we're doing such long standing work, some of the registry specs are in DVCG, and I think we can move them to CCG... we are in process of moving DVCG repos to CCG, we have an action item to move those repos to CCG org on Github.
Dmitri Zagidulin: Work is ongoing, we're looking for volunteers for JOSE part of it, moving DVCG specs to CCG, and then trying to figure out where to host contexts.
Joe Andrieu: Dmitri could you take the proposals and put them in the issue thread?
Joe Andrieu: Do we need formal action items to move repos?
Joe Andrieu: I'd like to make sure these items can have formal support before moving them over.
Christopher Allen: I think we clearly have authority to move stuff over, I'm Chair of DVCG. That being said, I don't want to move anything over that isn't active and doesn't meet our requirements.
Christopher Allen: I'd rather say "inactive" and use Github archive feature to lock it in time.
Christopher Allen: I don't want to move anything that isn't real in some fashion.
Orie Steele: +1, We should start by marking inactivity and archive
Joe Andrieu: My interpretation for what is real is "real in term of public discourse and standards development".
Joe Andrieu: Our role as a CG is to get them into public discourse.
Manu Sporny: I'm trying to get the order of operations. It's clear that the DVCG is dead and we're trying to figure out what to salvage from it and what will be archived and not maintained. There are multiple companies that are using this stuff and are using software libraries. They don't feel the need to engage because it's just working for them. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: I think we need to decide which of these things we are not end of lifeing, but say that work on it is halting and anything else we're continuing I'm happy for us to go through the CCG process and move it over. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: The RSA Signature spec implementation was done a long time ago and people are using them, specs are out of date, but I don't want to signal it's not supported. But if RSA support is requested and made a priority, those specs will be updated and pushed out. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: I want to make sure when we message that these things aren't currently supported that they won't ever be and this is an evolutionary dead end. That's not what's going on -- we just don't have enough people working on this simultaneously. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Orie Steele: For context: https://github.com/w3c-dvcg
Joe Andrieu: In terms of moving forward, on issue #18 - would like people to take it to the issue.
Orie Steele: Can we link the issue
Joe Andrieu: We're also talking about #3 and #18 - we want to see things move forward.
Carl DiClementi: On our end, we really require support for RSA and happy to contribute - why - SecureEnclave on Android doesn't support all signature types, leaning towards RSA because that's supported. If there is work that needs to be done, happy to contribute there.
Joe Andrieu: That would be great, thank you.
Joe Andrieu: That concludes our review of the issues, we need to move this stuff forward, we are busy, we look forward to how to keep the public part of that work moving forward even as we clean up stuff for DVCG.

Topic: 2020 Update & Roadmap Planning

Joe Andrieu: Where are we with DID WG? What's scope for this year?
Joe Andrieu: What can the CCG do to support you? What's 2020 look like for you?
Dan Burnett: The DID WG kicked off late last year, first draft of DID Core spec, first draft of DID Use Cases document, trying to get to FPWD for DID Rubrics document.
Dan Burnett: There are three main big discussion topics right now - JSON-LD syntax, no JSON-only syntax (even though document states that data model is generic, other realizations are possible), explicitly providing JSON-only representation, and along with that a different abstract way to describe DID Document Data Model, biggest topic under discussion right now.
Dan Burnett: Two other big topics are - metadata within DID Document, not going to try to define what that is.
Dan Burnett: How does metadata fit in with how you use DID Documents?
Dan Burnett: Third one is around matrix parameters - some questions about whether or not to have matrix parameters at all, might be a surprise for some of you, where we questioned whether or not we needed matrix parameters.
Dan Burnett: What we'd like to have is, if there is anyone that has an opinion on these topics, please join github discussion on these, Github repos are public, anyone can participate.
Orie Steele: Lol they muted
Dan Burnett: That's what we need, additional input on topics.
Dan Burnett: You can go to any repos and comment on existing issues.
Dan Burnett: One of the things that's challenging, you can sometimes only hear a few voices... or large group of voices, but large group of voices are not reflective of broader community.
Christopher Allen: The reason I asked for this to be added to Agenda is that it feels like there is a third or half of CCG community is not actively watching the DID WG.
Orie Steele: Regarding some of the discussion in DID WG regarding JSON-LD, we wrote this blog post: https://medium.com/transmute-techtalk/on-json-ld-and-the-semantics-of-identity-42d051d3ce14
Christopher Allen: ... Or are not W3C Members, so can't participate in those discussions on the calls... so having periodic reports and critical reports is something we'd like to see every few months. So, rest of community thinking that they can depend on matrix parameters can find out that they're at risk and can speak out.
Joe Andrieu: We do want to have a full call on how to move forward JSON-LD stuff, happy to coordinate with folks working on that.
Joe Andrieu: We will talk about that in the future.
Joe Andrieu: With respect to the VCWG rechartering process - the CCG is absolutely committed to supporting that.
Manu Sporny: This group put forward a charter proposal for a maintenance WG for the VCWG. That means they will station keep the specs, track what implementations are doing in the wild, fix bugs, things like that. It's up to this group to modify the specs and provide updates for that [which then feed into the VCWG maintenance group]. You have 48 hours to vote to open that group. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: If the vote is successful, we will have that new group for 2 years. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: A VCWG. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Manu Sporny: That will allow us to update the specs/station keep. That vote will end in 48 hours, then there will be about a month delay and the group will open in late February if the vote passes. [scribe assist by Dave Longley]
Joe Andrieu: Kim, Educational Task Force update?
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Those of us in the EdTech standards space - Digital Credentials Consortium is the 12 university effort - whitepaper is coming out in a week or so.
Joe Andrieu: Digital Credentails Consortium!
Kim Hamilton Duffy: The Verifiable Credentials for Education Task Force is the public face for that.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: The whitepaper is going to be using DIDs and VCs - collection of univerisities focused on implementation challenges in their domain. DCC is not a standards org. The examples called out are specific challenges that we want to work through in the Task Force, Digital Credentials Consortium has a roadmap, but to act on it, we want to work on doable prototypes.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Things equivalent to Open Badges for VCs, Diploma, MOOC certificate, etc.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: There are more difficult issues - building stackable credentials, ontologies, that will happen in tandem. How do we get these things working now, and then how do we work on longer lead problems... this is not just DCC - it's everything having to do with using VCs with Educational Credential claims. Because that's a large scope, we may spin off different efforts as we understand who shows up.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: For example, using DIDs to authenticate w/ university systems... including w/ publishing industry.
Kim Hamilton Duffy: Because we have rich set of problems, we set priorities there, start executing on that plan on TF.
Joe Andrieu: Thanks for the update, appreciate the difference between DCC and CCG support - VC4ETF - CCG - Verifiable Credentials For Education Task Force
Orie Steele: Thanks!