<sandy_aggarwal> Hello everyone. Not sure if you were able to hear
<harrison_tang> @kimberly Do you want to start the recording?
Our Robot Overlords are scribing.
Kimberly Linson: There we go all right now we can get started okay you all heard me say we adhere strictly to the code of ethics and professional conduct if you need a refresher on that you can find it in the agenda or on the w3c dot-org page we want everyone to join these calls and listen in and and invite you to invite people to come to these calls if you plan though. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Any substantive way to the work that's happening then you need to do need to have a w3c account and you need to have signed the the license agreement and both of the links to that can be found in very helpful agenda we keep notes for these meetings and audio recordings those can be found a link to those can be found in the in this helpful agenda and we used it C to the chat engine c2q up speakers so if you are interested. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Rested in being on the Q you can put Q Plus and that. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Uq- will move remove you and I will be taking the role today of kind of moderating and making sure that we keep the conversation going and now comes one of my favorite parts and that is introductions and reintroductions if you are new to the call today new to this ECG and the last little bit or if you just haven't been around or you've done something interesting that you want to tell us about I would invite you to put yourself on Q now. ✪
Kimberly Linson: All right how about announcements and reminders do we have any interesting news that we want to share with the community. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Manu I can always count on you. ✪
Kimberly Linson: I should have just called on you. ✪
Manu Sporny: So w3c 3-pack is coming up in September the 2nd September and it features a variety of work that we have incubated in the community group which is now in the verifiable credential working group with. ✪
Manu Sporny: Christina for sharing in moving that work forward so early 3ct packs happening trying to find the link here we go September 11th through the 15th the the interesting thing about tpack is it let's communicate Community groups participate in fact you can get like room time there I don't think we have there I don't think anyone goes just to join you know participate in community groups but we do. ✪
Manu Sporny: Across community group collaboration that is happening between the work this group is doing around verifiable credentials in the web of things group they have a bunch of questions around data integrity and verifiable credentials and I think that's happening on the Monday afternoon just kind of cross community collaboration there the other thing that may happen. ✪
Manu Sporny: From the Privacy group where they want to talk about verifiable credentials and specifically the new online age laws that are going into account in the u.s. in some of them are concerning because they're like hey we should siphon all this data on an individual to make sure that they're above certain age like take their entire driver's license rather than doing something a bit more appropriate. ✪
Manu Sporny: Ping's interested along with the number of other privacy Folks at w3c or interested about having a discussion around that maybe as a breakout session on Wednesday and I see Erica's on the Q so that's the will skip the rebooting announcement the other thing to mention is that just lasts our B&B cwg discussed one of the test Suite proposals. ✪
Manu Sporny: His preliminary agreement to pull some of those test Suites in and start developing on those that decision proposal whatever is not going to be you know there's some days for someone who object to it but it was largely plus ones the reason that's of interest to this group is that I know we have implementers here that don't necessarily participate in verifiable credential working group and so. ✪
Manu Sporny: Couple of months we'll be asking for people to start implementing like take their implementations and hook them up with some of these test Suites so that we can see if the you know how much of the specifications people are conforming to and if we need to fix things either in the test Suites or the specifications that's how we get feedback before we go to the final stage of standardization. ✪
Erica Connell: Hi good morning everyone well working for me happy happy today to all of you Manu of course you're welcome to talk about rebooting anytime but I will make the announcement that rebooting the web of trust 12 is happening in Cologne Germany after the tpack conference is rebooting it's the 18th through the 22nd I will put a link to tickets available on Eventbrite in the chat and of course we would love to see you there that's. ✪
Kimberly Linson: All right before I move to to Brent is there anything that we need to discuss on work items. ✪
Manu Sporny: Yeah this this came up in the VC education call yesterday but there was. ✪
Manu Sporny: I think a desire to maybe get some feedback from the community on what we should focus on next so we have a number of ccg work items like the verifiable issue and verifier lists render method confidence method and a variety and some did methods did key you know did web in I think there is kind of like this desire to send out ranked Choice kind of vote on. ✪
Manu Sporny: His priorities just to get some feedback like is the next set of features we should focus on around rendering or do people feel like the trust you know registry stuff is more important or are we missing something and people you know want us to work on that instead so just a heads up that you know maybe we want to circulate a questionnaire to the community and just get some broad feedback on what. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Okay that's really helpful and I'll get with Harrison and Mike and we can figure out the best way to do that and that'll be really interesting I'm interested to see what the community says. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Okay Brent the floor is all yours. ✪
<manu_sporny> Brent looks happier than that 99.9% of the time :P
Manu Sporny is scribing.
Brent: This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. I drew inspiration for this work from Heather Flannagan. Some of these slides are hers. This is a broader talk on standards. ✪
Brent: Standards don't come out fully formed, you have to be engaged early and often... if you get involved too late, difficult to change direction. ✪
Brent: First part of this conversation, which I'd like conversation, jump in if you'd like... as we go through development phase, talk about how process evolves, and will speak to how it works at W3C. ✪
Brent: At very beginning of standards dev lifecycle, we are in CGs at W3C... we are in BOF sessions at IETF... or you're hangingout at IIW thinking about interesting sessions... that then turns into hallway conversation... which then turns into something you want to work on. Ideas happen, cluster, like set of eggs layed by a butterfly, not every idea survives long term. ✪
Brent: It's a free form world where ideas are the realm of conversation... hard to quantify which ones become standards... impossible to express value of incubation... but it's invaluable if you want to have that sort of influence on what standards are created and where things go. ✪
Brent: After initial incubation... we get some legs... continues in W3C CGs... what should we work on ... adoption of work item in CG heralds something that's concrete enough. ✪
Brent: Participation ends up with something more refined... but at that stage, there is still a lot of conversation and lots of effort spent incubating... since conversation is still happening, influencing things at this stage is challenging... difficult to see where your incentives best fit w/ converstaions that are happening. ✪
Brent: After the legs of the work form, there is standards development and implementation... ideas are more set... there is refinement as implementations are created and noble ideas are being implemented in real world... there is some back and forth, but at this stage, difficult to see what the progress is. If you start with a spec and rip out half of it, is that progress? Sometimes yes, if quality of spec is improved. ✪
Brent: WG has refined specification, implementations provide feedback... back and forth can occur. Influencing spec at this stage requires higher level of investment...you need resources to implement. ✪
Brent: Participating as WG members can be expensive, but regardless of whether or not it's at W3C or elsewhere, it takes a lot of concentrated time. As the standard is adopted, as existing implementations beocme real worl ddeployments... it can take years... when WG has the thing done... it goes out into the world, but can still take years for things to implementers to engage w/ standard, compare it to other implementations, this is where there is ✪
Continued discussions -- what details need to be added, what future work to pursue, interesting transition between final proposal of standard and incubation of new standard. ✪
Brent: When VC v1.0 went out, we recognized that there were details that we handwaved around... we wanted the spec to be broad and implementable and experiment with it... this experimentation allowed us to come back in v2.0 to understand what we need to nail down in v2.0 (like the proof section) and any other extension points, if we are going to continue to support them, those need to be nailed down as well. Refinement of details of adopted standard led ✪
Brent: at this stage of development, you can say "We are implementing" or if there are issues w/ specs, see if implementation sare interoprable. ✪
Brent: At different standards organizations, these are roughly the timelines... ISO, OIDF, W3C, IETF -- different stages, preparation of document, each path is different, but all end up in a similar place... you end up w/ a final specification, W3C calls them Recommendations, IETF says Internet Standards... each SDO has their paths to follow to get to the final thing. ✪
Brent: Looking specifically at W3C -- W3C has a process document, this is the official guide for developing recommendations at W3C... recommendations started long before a WG is started... most of stuff in VCWG began in CCG here (many years ago), grateful for that incubation. ✪
Brent: Not all publications are standards at W3C... You can have a Recommendation (Web standard), or a Note (informal thing WG wanted to publish)... at IETF (best practices documentation)... outside of standards dev process, this can be confusing. ✪
<tallted_//_ted_thibodeau_(he/him)_(openlinksw.com)> New weird Jitsi thing. Some seconds of display of each slide, then it goes to just the pulsing speaker initial until the slide advances. So most of speech is without a slide display. :-(
Brent: People somtimes point to proposal somewhere, not quite done in process, not matured -- final CG draft, WG note. ✪
Brent: Look at the W3C Process document, it's got fascinating stuff in it. W3C strives for consensus, which is defined in process document. Illuminating section is about "decisions" -- depend on group that needs to make the decision... sometimes WG has decided, sometimes Interest Group has decided, W3C Team can decide things... W3C Decisions (Advisory Committee) is group responsibel for making the decision... when we get to final Recommendation, at each ✪
Point it indicates which group is responsible for making decision. ✪
Brent: Before we can go into this process... before we get there, at W3C, there needs to be a charter... there are folks here that know more about charter development than they ever wanted to work. ✪
Brent: If there is interest in forming a group, a charter is drafted and presented by W3C Team, Team makes a decision to present a charter to W3C Membership. How charter gets to team, how it's been drafted, process for creating this document, none of that is really explained in Process document... amorphous. ✪
Brent: It is clear what needs to be in a charter, not clear who is supposed to do all of that. My understanding is that the fuzziness is deliberate. Once the team makes decision to present Charter, then Advisory Committee is responsible for approving/changing/rejecting charters. ✪
Brent: This is important because only WGs are responsible for creating Recommendations... ✪
Brent: Other groups at W3C -- Advidsory Committee, Technical Architecture group -- we are concerned w/ CG and WGs, becaue that's where we are engaged. That's where most of the standards work occurs. ✪
Brent: Developing specifications inside of WGs... WGs are given instructions on what to work... Technical Reports can be Recommendations, Notes, registries, recommendations almost always have been incubated elsewhere prior to WG being formed. ✪
Brent: Inside of a WG, the WG decides that they want to adopt a work item... publish a First Public Working Draft of a recommendation. Decision to publish ... repository it goes in, when it is published on W3C, what's the short name, once the group has initial contnet, goes to team for approval. ✪
Brent: Document can stay in Working Draft form for a long time... that's where development occurs... for example, all VCWG work items are in a Working Draft stage... been working on them for more than a year now... this is where we are. In order to get past this WD stage, in order to go into Candidate Recommendation... the WG needs to make a decision to proceed to the next stage. ✪
Brent: There are CR Snapshots, there are CR Drafts, and the CR snapshot is where the group believes the WD is done... all normative elements are there, we are done... team approval... CR Snapshot happens. ✪
Brent: You can iterate CR Snapshots... you can make another snapshot... taking a snapshot requires same WG decision, team approval, starts off a number of timelines that need to be seen out... ✪
Brent: New snapshot is required if you need to make normative changes -- from wide review, implementers that need feedback, you go from CR snapshot to CR draft and draft is where you iterate on non-normative changes. ✪
Kimberly Linson: It when I asked you to push your side forward and push it back again because it we see it there you go and maybe do that a couple times so we can see it I feel like this is when it's been we've been able to see your slides at the beginning and then kind of at the end and that's been working fine but this one I felt like was so important I'm sorry to interrupt but just wanted to make sure that folks could see it. ✪
Brent: Go from Working Draft to Candidate Recommendation Snapshot... asking for implementations, asking for review from Horizontal Review (Privacy, Security, Technical Architecture, Internationalization, Accessibility, etc.) -- all of those look at spec from different points of view... note what they think. ✪
Brent: It's feedback from Horizontal Review that lead to Candidate Recommendation Draft -- you can publish as many Drafts as you want, you can only change document Editorially. ✪
Brent: If you move into a Snapshot, the WG has to decide and team has to approve, because it kicks off another review... need to ask for reviews for differences ... that process can take 6 weeks, but in most cases it takes 2-3 months per snapshot... after CR phase, next phase is where WG is "done". ✪
<transcriber> TallTed_//_Ted_Thibodeau_(he/him)_(OpenLinkSw.com): Sorry Brenda given what Kimberly just said I'm guessing that maybe if you move your cursor around while you're speaking that's going to keep the display going because like you were just talking about a Green Arrow and we couldn't see an hour.
Brent: WG has completed spec to their satisfaction, CR is implementers are satisfied and Horizontal review is satisfied... ✪
<transcriber> TallTed_//_Ted_Thibodeau_(he/him)_(OpenLinkSw.com): No I blame gypsy.
<manu_sporny> It's Apple's fault -- they just rolled out breaking changes to WebRTC (again) :P
Brent: PR says: "This is done, it's implemented" ... once in Proposed Recommendation, the W3C Membership, through the Advisory Committee, needs to agree -- PR to REC. Proposed recommendation phase is generally where you experience things like "Formal Objections" ✪
<phil_t3> @Manu Interesting. I'm viewing this through Safari, and so far I've never seen the slide disappear or parts of it fail to appear.
Brent: The dotted red lines, show going "back in process" -- AC Review says what needs to happen... if there are enough objections, you can go back in process... ✪
<manu_sporny> yes, it works apple to apple ... broken apple -> other platforms (but only sometimes)
Brent: Process allows things to move backwards... in proposed recommendation, if either Advisory Committee comes to consensus/approves it... whether consensus can be determined by process... W3C decision is made to move it into Recommendation, and it's done. ✪
Brent: When we talk about WG decision... ideal model is everyone in WG agrees that it's ready to make a step. ✪
Brent: That's the ideal... W3C Process, for each group that needs to make decision, there is the possibility of consensus to be made by "executive decision" -- Chairs can decide, Team can decide if consensus fails to be reached. ✪
Brent: WG decisions that move process forward, even if a few people object, Chairs can move forward anyway... Formal Objections handled in a way that Advisory Board and TAG deliberate on formal objection and determine if objection should stand or be overridden. ✪
Brent: In my experience, Formal Objections are noted and are usually overridden... ✪
Brent: I realize this slide looks complicated... lots of detail isn't in text on slide... if you want to dive deeper, there is a W3C Process document that defines all of these things. ✪
Brent: Encourage you to jump into process document. ✪
Brent: Time to get involved in standards is early as possible, not everyone has capacity or support (time/money) to engage... bieng invovled in CGs, showing up to IIW, these are the best ways to influence things and ideas before they enter into incubation. ✪
Brent: The true value add in later stages, is how well you implement and interoperate... it usually doesn't help to do spec and do other things that are amazing, but interoperability provides most value for people. ✪
Brent: If you are going to be an implementer of these standards, and implement well, is to be engaged w/ the process. ✪
Brent: Particularly in the W3C, in CR phase, "yes, implemented, yes provided feedback, finally" thanks to Heather Flanagan for constructing most of these slides. She's a fantastic individual, very talented, wonderful to be around... she's at IIW. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Thank you so much Brent it was an again we had a little issue with your slides coming in and out but I really forced me to like look at your side quickly and then listen and that was actually really helpful for me to building the context and so I have a couple questions before I turn it over to the Keogh and I will be looking for Heather at IW so one of the things that that sort of came to mind as you were talking and going through this this sort of circular circular process of. ✪
Kimberly Linson: You know we bring this the standard forward and then it's kind of got to go back around. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Around a few times and just thinking about how Dynamic and how quickly evolving technology is it seems to me that like for the most part working groups kind of continue on is that is that correct like they kind of release their their recommendation and then they've got to kind of revise that after a little bit of time is that and then they sort of have to keep doing that is that the case. ✪
Brent: in genral, yes - WGs are strictly chartered, rare for WG to exist for more than a couple of years... scope of WG is strict... "these are the documents you can work on, here's what you can do with them" After WG has created Rec, another WG of same name will be chartered again, but WG will maintain the document... as maintenance occured... VCWG v1.0 was done... then v1.1 was released... then another WG formed to work on v2.0 (along with associated ✪
Brent: At IETF it's a bit different...r echartering of WG and work items are more fluid/flexible... every SDO does things a bit differently, I hope that answers your question. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Yes thank you and I guess you know I'm just I'm feeling like there's so much work and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger and you know if you're a new person you're coming into this space and you're trying to sort of get your feet on the ground and figure out which direction to even look to do you feel like that process document is the place to start or is there another place that you would give someone to start. ✪
Brent: Don't start with Process document... place to start is here... if you are involved in Decentralized Identity, you should be involved in Credentials CG -- other places is Internet Identity Workshop, Decentrazlied Identity Foundation, I wouldn't recommend W3C Process document as best way to get involved... Talk to other people involved, come with ideas. ✪
Brent: That pre-incubation phase, at CGs at IIW, is where conversations happen... for folks wanting to be involved, listen to conversations happening, find one that's fascinating, ask other people how to participate. ✪
Kimberly Linson: That is a great suggestion and I'm gonna I'm going to add that to our to our newcomer slide deck and then my last question is just about you know as you were talking about the work being in cubed incubated here in the community groups you know do you have any recommendations or tips or us as a community group sending the what's been incubated to make sure that it's valuable. ✪
Brent: The process has been working well, don't have many tips there... sometimes, for newcomers, there is hesitency for proposing things... but at CG stage, it's ok to propose something, seek for other people that are interested, and for idea ... not a failure for idea to be explored and recorded and then not going standards track. There have been a number of incubated specs, process of developing it was valuable, even though spec "never went anywhere" ✪
Because of impact it has on future incubation. Spawn greater details, any incubation at any point, tried that... one aspect that we tried -- earlierst conversations around Verifiable Credentials that initiatited need for Decentralized Identifiers. ✪
Brent: Incubation process has amazing interplay, encouragement is -- if you have an idea, hae a though, talk to people about it. See what it would take to become a formal work item here... you might have stumbled onto something amazing. ✪
Kimberly Linson: That's great thank you so much that's really really helpful all right Manu I think we're first on the queue. ✪
Manu Sporny: Yes thanks that was amazing brand that was fantastic best presentation on standards that that I've seen so with with that I think I want to go back to like how people can participate right because we have a number of people at ccg and not everyone's fully engaged in participating in that might not might be because of lack of time money whatever but. ✪
Manu Sporny: There are multiple ways to participate one of them is you've got a great idea and you want to make it work and you find your tribe to do it and you push it forward the other ways to kind of get involved with as much I hate as he say the stuff nobody wants to touch like the janitorial stuff the stuff that really needs you know work put into it but you know no one's no one's stepping up I'm wondering if you could speak to Brent like. ✪
Brent: Participating in standards process does not require being W3C member, joining WG formally, the meetings are for participants to have conversations, but every group has a github repository and in that Github repository ANYONE can raise an issue... comment, anyone can jump into any conversation... raise issues they're concerned about. ✪
Brent: How things could be fixed... you can do this w/o being WG member... you can join mailing list, engaeg on mailing list, engage on github, track/open issues. ✪
Brent: options to raise PRs, mostly PRs are limited to WG participants (just because of IP agreements), more to do w/ making technologies open/free (committing to releasing all IP when making contributions).... ✪
<mprorock> unfortunately have to drop - thank you brent!
Brent: For independents and academics who actively want to write PRs and edit specification and be busy in moving work forward, there is an option to be an "invited expert" -- a bit odd, you have to apply to be invited... but it's relatively straightforward process... you go to WG page... click the button to "join as Invited Expert" -- being accepted differs from group to group, always a Chair decision... in VCWG, we do have an expectation that IEs will ✪
Either be fully engaged w/ WG (raise PRs, do Editing, directly moving work forward) or they will have some sort of "ambassadorial presence". ✪
Brent: So, folks who may not be able to engage on PRs, but can represent VCWG (and their own communities) for cross-collaboration purposes. ✪
<tallted_//_ted_thibodeau_(he/him)_(openlinksw.com)> link to slidedeck?
Kimberly Linson: Thank you so much Brent this was really really great I really appreciate it I'm looking forward to the recording and being able to share that with some of the new folks in the community thank you all so much one of the things I learned today was that this is an apple ish so Safari to Safari and so we'll make a note in the agenda that maybe Safari is your best bet for using jet ski right now so thank you all so very much. ✪
Kimberly Linson: Much and we'll see you next week. ✪