W3C

– DRAFT –
Decentralized Identifiers WG

13 June 2024

Attendees

Present
bigbluehat, burn, decentralgabe, dlehn, ivan, JoeAndrieu, manu, mccown, pchampin, phila, shigeya, wip
Regrets
dlongley, TallTed
Chair
burn, decentralgabe
Scribe
pchampin

Meeting minutes

introductions

burn: Dan Burnett, involved in digital identity and related standards since 25 years, co-created the DID WG
… here as backup for Gabe

decentralgabe: with Block; editor of a few specs around VC; author of some DID methods
… please everyone q+ on IRC for introducing yourself
… we will then review the work that we have to do as a group.
… questions about our work items.

kevindean: Kevin Dean, Legendary Requirements; co-editor of the VC use cases document

markus_sabadello: Markus Sabadello, author and editor of the initial DID core resolution, and also DID resolution

phila: Phil Archer, GS1 Global Office. Think of GS1 as "the bar code people", standard body for the supply chain industry.
… Interested in how and whether GS1 must implement DID.
… Spent 8 years on the W3C team, working on Linked Data

JoeAndrieu: Joe Andrieu, Legendary Requirements, co-author of the DID use cases document, creator and co-editor of the DID rubric.
… interested in the DID Resolution spec

bigbluehat: Benjamin Yound, Digital Bazaar. Involved in W3C for 10 years: Web Annotations, JSON-LD (chair of the WG), VC

ivan: Ivan Herman, W3C, former staff contact of the DID WG. Now staff contact of the VC WG, but still interested in this group.

Wes-Smith: Wes Smith, Digital Bazaar, new to this space.

manu: Manu Spory, co-editor of DID and VC specs.

shigeya: Shigeya Suzuki, co-editor of the DID core spec.

Bruno: Brino Vavala, Interlabs. Here to monitor the work of the group.

mccown: Steve McCown, co-chair of the DID-Comm WG at DIF. On the DIF steering committee.
… Background in cybersecurity, approaching problems from that perspective.

wip: Will Abramson, Legendary Requirements, co-chair of the CCG.

dlehn: David Lehn, Digital Bazaar, involved in JSON-LD, VC, DID for quite some time.

jameseaster: James Easter, Digital Bazaar, new to this space.

danpape: Dan Pape, Digital Contract Design. In this space for a few years.

pchampin: Pierre-Antoine Champin, W3C, team contact of this group.

<manu> pchampin: Hi Pierre-Antoine from W3C, staff contact, relatively new to the space, looking forward to learning.

JennieM: Jennie Meier, Digital Contract Design, alternate AC-rep for DCD, new to this space.

Tyler Minard: Digital Bazaar.

burn: it's great to see so many people. Please turn on your video if you are willing to. It is nice to get to know people a little better during the initial call.

W3C process

W3C Process https://www.w3.org/2023/Process-20231103

gabe: the W3C operates under a process of strong consensus. Different from other organizations.
… If somebody disagrees, we may spend time trying to resolve the objection. It does not always work, but we take time for that.
… Also, when we ask for scribes, please volunteer. For newcomers, this is a good way to become popular in the group.
… We will talking more about spec process.
… I look forward to see you all at the F2F meeting. We will do work in the meantime, but this is an important moment for the group.
… A standard group is a place where competitors meet.
… Remember that people who disagree with you are not idiots, they usually are talented and knowldgeable.

<decentralgabe> https://www.w3.org/2023/Process-20231103

<decentralgabe> https://www.w3.org/2023/Process-20231103/#correction-classes

decentralgabe: +1 to what Dan said about scribing; also a good way to pay close attention to the meeting.

<decentralgabe> https://www.w3.org/2023/Process-20231103/#rec-track

decentralgabe: Above links to the W3C process, and to the section about correction classes and the recommendation tracks.
… We are going to work together as a team; please rely on us chairs and the team contact to resolve conflicts.

pchampin: two parts to our work

Charter Review https://www.w3.org/2024/04/did-wg-charter.html

decentralgabe: the group is chartered for two years. We can consider extensions as need be.
… We plan to meet on a weekly basis. This time is the most probably accepted time, according to the previous survey.

burn: we will talk about that at the end of the meeting.

decentralgabe: we will maintain the DID core spec; no new features, but class 3 changes may affect compliance
… we will also maintain the DID registry
… I talks with people and no one seems interested to take over this deliverable. We might need to deprioritize it.

<burn> Just to note that items such as the Plain CBOR representation are maintenance only, so it is not an issue if no one has a desire for changes.

<decentralgabe> https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-resolution/

decentralgabe: Then we have the DID Resolution deliverable on REC track.
… It has one input document (link above), but that does not mean that we can not depart from that document.

<manu> I really do hope we do adopt the CCG DID Resolution spec -- it's the best starting point :)

decentralgabe: The charter lists a number of related groups that we may want to liaise with at some point.
… External organizations are also listed.
… To join meetings you need to be a W3C member, but minutes are publicly available.
… The mailing list and github repo are also public.

<Zakim> phila, you wanted to talk about liaisons

phila: don't overlook the liaison section

<Zakim> burn, you wanted to explain external groups/coordination

phila: in the RCH WG, which I chaired with markus_sabadello, we had a hard time justifying that we had actually liaised with the groups listed in our charter.

burn: agree; in some cases, it is worth having a proper liaison.
… In other cases, it is mostly about having people in both group discussing.

ivan: one more things that people should realize:
… we have a number of "Horizontal Review" groups (i18n, accessibility, privacy, security, TAG)
… it is extremely important to get their review before publishing a Candidate Recommendation,
… it is never too early to contact them; they have requests from many different groups

<phila> +1 to Ivan's comments

<Zakim> burn, you wanted to add to what ivan said

ivan: We should draw their attention as soon as we have a First Public Working Draft.

burn: thanks ivan. We will cover this as we go along.
… If you are new to this process, it is easy to think "we are doing our work, the rest does not matter".
… Many other groups I've been involved in start without a process, then add those constraints as they go, realizing they are necessary for a standard group.
… This is what makes a standard good for the world.

Charter discussion

decentralgabe: we will create 2 distinct task forces.
… we will need editors for each of our work items.
… You may express interest right now, or later.

manu: some comments on the DID-core spec and the DID spec registries.
… I'm volunteering as an editor for both.
… DID-core has editorial PRs since 2021, which we didn't address as we were working on the charter.
… They should be addressed.
… In the VC WG, we have a new Controller Document spec, which is a generalization of DID-core.

<decentralgabe> https://w3c.github.io/controller-document/

manu: We has a number of updates, normatively defined.
… This group will have to decide whether to depend on this spec or not.
… The two biggest things that I see for DID-core.
… For the DID-spec registries, a couple of things happened.
… A group of ~14 people are helping dealing with registration, but I'm behind on managing PRs.
… A couple more volunteers would be useful.

decentralgabe: as we migrate the rubric and spec registries to W3C Registry, what does it mean process-wise?

pchampin: as they are notes, hence non-normative, I guess the transition will be very similar to starting from scratch

<mccown> I'm happy to volunteer to help as a co-editor of either document

ivan: we need to check with PLH. This is a special case, hence not covered in the process.

markus_sabadello: interested in being an editor of the DID resolution work item.

<Zakim> manu, you wanted to suggest some thoughts. and to suggest some thoughts on Registry.

<JoeAndrieu> I'm also happy to volunteer to continue editor role with DID Method Rubric and, should we need it, the DID Use Cases document.

manu: regarding registries, my understanding is that the WG sets the rules that govern the registry.
… by and large, the current criteria that we have works ok.
… We need to discuss if everyone agrees.

burn: thanks to Steve and Joe for volunteering to help with some documents.
… We will leave this call for volunteers open for a little while, then we will reach out to people.

<JoeAndrieu> Co-editors welcome!

burn: We appreciate the volunteering, often we don't get enough volunteers.

Administrivia

<decentralgabe> https://www.w3.org/events/tpac/2024/tpac-2024-hybrid-meeting/

decentralgabe: TPAC is coming up in September. It would be excellent if you could join in person, but that's a hybrid meeting, so online is good too.
… Our meetings are on Monday and Tuesday; no conflict with VC.

<manu> yes, interested in a joint session w/ FedID WG

decentralgabe: There is a conflict with the Federated ID CG+WG. I contacted their chair about a possible joint meeting.

<phila> +1 to a joint session with the federated ID folks. A compare and contrast discussion would be interesting

decentralgabe: It would be interesting to have presentations/demos of DID uses in the real world.

<Zakim> phila, you wanted to talk about TPAC

phila: if you can get there, it is good. 10 years ago, there was the 20th anniversary of the Web with TimBL and Vint Cerf.
… This year will be the 30th anniversary. You will be glad to be there.

<TallTed> there's also DID & FedID overlap/conflict with WebID, which remains a 2014 Editor's Draft, trying to become at least a CG Report. needs proper adoption and shepherding, because LOTS of people treat it as if it were a full TR

decentralgabe: recurring meeting: this slot seems to work.
… reach out to me if you have remarks, or know other interested people.

burn: the next meeting will not necessarily be next week. Watch your email.
… If we need to schedule a different slot, this is goint to take time.

https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/did/calendar/

decentralgabe: please review the charter and list of deliverables;

<manu> woo! Thanks everyone! Excited to get started!

decentralgabe: open issues or comment on existing ones.

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 221 (Fri Jul 21 14:01:30 2023 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/Tim/Tyler/

Succeeded: s/dan:/burn:

Succeeded: s/maintain the DID core WG/maintain the DID core spec/

Succeeded: s/never to early/never too early/

Succeeded: s/Administiriva/Administrivia

No scribenick or scribe found. Guessed: pchampin

Maybe present: Bruno, danpape, gabe, jameseaster, JennieM, kevindean, markus_sabadello, Wes-Smith

All speakers: bigbluehat, Bruno, burn, danpape, decentralgabe, dlehn, gabe, ivan, jameseaster, JennieM, JoeAndrieu, kevindean, manu, markus_sabadello, mccown, pchampin, phila, shigeya, Wes-Smith, wip

Active on IRC: bigbluehat, Bruno, burn, danpape, decentralgabe, dlehn, dlongley, ivan, jameseaster, JennieM, JoeAndrieu, kevindean, manu, markus_sabadello, mccown, pchampin, phila, shigeya, TallTed, tminard, Wes-Smith, wip