The Verifiable Claims Task Force

A Task Force of the Web Payments Interest Group

Verifiable Claims Telecon

Minutes for 2017-01-10

Agenda
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-credentials/2017Jan/0002.html
Topics
  1. Vote for Verifiable Claims WG
  2. Use Cases Document Update
  3. Agenda Items for Next Week
Organizer
Richard Varn, Matt Stone
Scribe
Nathan George
Present
Nathan George, Richard Varn, Matt Stone, Manu Sporny, Shane McCarron, Christopher Allen, Joe Andrieu, Adam Migus, Jonathan Holt, Dave Longley, Gregg Kellogg, Eric Korb, John Tibbetts, Adam Lake, Adrian Gropper, David Ezell, Les Chasen, Drummond Reed, Nate Otto, Dave Crocker
Audio Log
Nathan George is scribing.
Richard Varn: Any comments on the agenda to start? The comment from Tim about the time available in an hour was part of a discussion from the last call.
... there will be a queue of items that we can chose to take on if there is time at the end of a call
Manu Sporny: We should talk about the handoff of specs from this group to the working group. This process will take a week or two, we should talk about it.

Topic: Vote for Verifiable Claims WG

Manu Sporny: The folks that are w3c members can track the vote's status
... things are going well, we have reached out to 214 organizations, and have had a very healthy response
... the vote closes at the end of this week (Sunday)
... its very important that if you do support the work to go and make a note of that
Manu Sporny: We must respond to the formal objection raised
Manu Sporny: When the vote closes the W3C staff looks at the formal objections and the responses posted, and then move appropriately
Manu Sporny: I expect that there will be a number of additional formal objections that may come in at the end
Richard Varn: Any other questions about the process?
Richard Varn: AckChristopherA
Christopher Allen: It seems appropriate that an AC could comment on another ACs list
... In response to dezell's question about responding directly to objections
... some discussion about helping create constructive discussion
Manu Sporny: There are many votes in favor, so there is material to address this objection (there is an answer, and it has been thought through)

Topic: Use Cases Document Update

Richard Varn: There is a lot of content from the past and we're trying to aggregate that
... there is also a primary use case that we have links to
Manu Sporny: Use Cases document: https://opencreds.github.io/vc-use-cases/
Manu Sporny: Use Case issues here: https://github.com/opencreds/vc-use-cases/issues
Richard Varn: Our agenda item for today is to go through this to make sure we have broad consensus on this and agree about what is there?
Manu Sporny: My understanding is that Joe Andrieu had submitted a list of issues with the current use-cases document, and others have asked if we have dropped important use cases
Joe Andrieu: Given that the use cases have become an important part of WG creation, is this document formatted properly and is it specified correctly in terms of content?
Matt Stone: We were having this discussion in the last meeting before the holidays, and jumping into a few of the technical details without necessarily having agreed on the context of the use cases we are supporting
... this discussion is really to say, if we get to the point in specification development where we need to settle an issue, it should be driven by the documented use cases
... we should come to consensus quickly on the use cases we are trying to meet
Manu Sporny: Thanks for the background Matt, agreed
Manu Sporny: I think we could talk about the scope and prioritization of the use cases that should be enabled by the time we are done (having a list of 100 isn't helpful)
... the current use cases is pretty good in that respect, it might be nice to talk about specific short-commings
... the other weakness that has been pointed out, is that there are other documents at W3C that point out real use cases, instead of hypothetical use cases. It would be good to use real examples of incompatibility in real-world scenarios.
... As far as scope is concerned, we can get really wrapped up in that, so we don't want to be putting too much effort into it (doing it in parrallel might be helpful)
Joe Andrieu: That helps manu, I'm hearing that there is some license to propose what we should be doing
... without slowing down the technical track work
... a new example section in that document would be helpful
... we could also have examples of items in-use
... both of these could help illustrate real-world use
Joe Andrieu: I would like to put before the group one or more engagement models, meaning a life-cycle perspective of an individual engaging with the system (Syrian Refugee example illustrating a self-sovereign identity system)
... it lets the document illustrate a series of use-cases and shows how a user starts interacting with the system all the way through using those verifiable claims
Christopher Allen: I have been very happy with the results of working on the expanded engagement model, and have found that they reveal some important things.
... JoeAndrieu looked at this regarding the traditional web of trust model and it was helpful.
... I recommend that other parties that are looking at specific models that are planning on deploying sooner look at these engagement models on thier offerings
... Will it drive forward our current charter? Less so, but it will help the real world implementations.
Christopher Allen: Current models may missing some important early uses, like WoT
Manu Sporny: I think that the current use-cases document, in its current form, is good. Adding engagement models would also be a good thing, and is a helpful improvement.
Joe Andrieu: For the record, I'm definitely willing to lead some additional work on the use cases
... I think we could get out of the way of Joe and help him get what he needs to make progress
Manu Sporny: There are a number of people in our group that are working on products that need Verifiable Claims
... those people are very interested in doing digital offers and digital coupons. How do we get those use-cases into our document.
Christopher Allen: WoT for software code, security reviews, academic peer review
... Personally, I'd like to see more of these use cases (coupons, digital offers) be listed, and in addition list the refugee use cases, but be sure that the digital offers, digital coupons, digital loyalty, and perhaps digital drivers license and digital passports and local ID cards could be listed
Richard Varn: The known use cases that are likely to be deployed should be represented in the use cases
Joe Andrieu: Some of these items are not well-formed use-cases, we need to do some work to make sure we have figured those out
... for example the refugee crisis is a category of functionality, not a specific use case
... we should sit down with the folks working in each area (education) and make sure we have worked through those details
Richard Varn: Lets move to a summary on these points
Joe Andrieu: Talking manu's lead on this, I will propose some work and engage with this on github
Christopher Allen: I'd like to see who is actively scoping implementation so we can focus on those use cases first.
Richard Varn: Any other comments on fleshing out and organizing use-cases?
Manu Sporny: Thanks JoeAndrieu for your effort here
Manu Sporny: There has been some criticism that some use cases have been lost. Lets use issues to enable Joe to sort through these use cases and decide whether interaction models are needed.
... this should allow people to interact with the process without flooding the mailing list, and help the unadressed issues stay as open issues
... since they are in the use-cases repository we can tag the ones that have been discussed and whether they made it into the document.
Christopher Allen: Use cases issues tracker URL?
... please continue to enter these issues into the tracker.
Adam Migus: Having a domain expert look at the use cases in the domain is important.
... It should be a requirement that all the use cases have a domain expert vet them, and if there isn't an expert available it might not be a good use case to keep.
Richard Varn: That would require us to pair Joe with those experts to make progress which might be an issue.
Adam Migus: If someone needs help with finance use cases I volunteer.
Manu Sporny: I want Adam Migus to help w/ Finance Industry use cases!
Jonathan Holt: I'd be happy to contribute to the healthcare use-cases.
Christopher Allen: These use cases were built out of the requirement to have use cases to get a working group process moving forward, now that we are becomming a working group the purpose of these use cases might be different
Richard Varn: Matt--i have to drive somewhere--can you take over the irc chairing?
... we should make sure the use cases that are being coverered by active prototypes or implementations in-use are broken out more, and driven to a higher-level with the participation of those working on them
... and perhaps skip the use cases that aren't being actively developed
Richard Varn: Thanks Christoper next in q
Christopher Allen: For example, there are lots of things to be addressed around anti-correlated claims and many very small VCs, and we need more information about these in the short-term
Matt Stone: ChristopherA, this may be a little redundant in working groups, and how to figure this out, but we're making a data model and not software, which may feel differently than what we've done in the past
Dave Longley: Note: we do have a deliverable of recommending signature strategies which may include some of what christopher is talking about
... as we describe the parts of this data model, I'd like to have a more explicit relationship between the technical spec and the use case.
... we don't want implementations to be restricted by the scope of the data model that we are delivering, because it is simply the foundation of what we are doing as implementers.
... because of this we get into discussions that are out of bounds for the discussions of what the working group is describing but they are important to understanding how they relate to our implementations and helping other implementers relate to the spec.
Joe Andrieu: One of the great thing about use cases is that they are so valuable that even poorly formed use cases are useful.
... I would like to find the original so that I could review it.
... part of our work is to distill this list to just a handful so that we can have a concise conversation.
... we hope to catch a bunch of this stuff as part of this work and these conversations.
Gregg Kellogg: I think that use cases are often used to derive requirements, which is also a driving principle for having multiple use cases that support a requirement.
Gregg Kellogg: This is the practice we took on CSV on the web.
Manu Sporny: I'm concerned about taking too much time for use-cases in the working group.
... in past experience, these use-cases aren't looked at much in the working groups. 10-15% of time discussing use-cases is more normal.
... reducing the number of use cases was important in setting the scope of this working group, though there are companies building much broader products.
... there are many going to meetings at RebootingWebOfTrust and IETF that are discussing digital wallets, and many other topics
... while these are out of scope for the WG, they are fair to mention in the catalog of use-cases and in understanding the larger vision that many of us are chasing.
... we need to understand what is in scope, without losing sight of this larger vision.
... if and when we re-chartter to address those broader issues, it will be valuable to have captured those thoughts for that next-version of this WG.
Jonathan Holt: Ditto
Jonathan Holt: I am a board certified physician, and there are questions for him on how this can be implemented and handled
... so this is a future in-scope charter, but we must finish out the modelling first.
Adam Migus: To tack on a little bit about the role of the use cases, in my experience, they are very useful early on. Then you move from use-cases to requirements then move on from there.
Adam Migus: I agree that it is valuable for an investment early on, but it is a yellow flag if we are talking about them and moving them around later on in the process.
... In the next week or so we will move into the issue tracker for use cases and get feedback and more real-world (less-abstract) examples
... we hope to move on into requirements for the data model after that occurs
Manu Sporny: +1 Sounds like a good plan
Jonathan Holt: +1
Joe Andrieu: Sounds good
Jonathan Holt: 650 Jonnycrunch
Eric Korb: 908 Is korb
Jonathan Holt: I got kicked off the SIP phone and had to dial back in using my cell. could reconnect via SIP.
Christopher Allen: Can we spend one minute on the priorities for next week?

Topic: Agenda Items for Next Week

Matt Stone: The protocol will have us prioritizing issues in github, and the chairs haven't tried to pick the next two or three, but are there recommendations?
Christopher Allen: I'm stuck on the things that are outside of scope on signature formats and things of that nature
Joe Andrieu: I think we want to have an issue for real world examples, and a few minutes on how to continue that effort would be helpful.
Christopher Allen: I would love to have the web-of-trust one articulated more fully
Manu Sporny: We can absolutely talk about the data format of the web-of-trust needs
... for example how to make a VC claiming what my name is, but we can't dive into the technical details of the signature format.
... but we should talk about, in the VC, how is it verifiable?
Christopher Allen: I have asked for a while, what is a self-signed claim? and some of these simple, basic, ideas that the TG started out with, and I would like to make sure those are still covered in terms of the data layout and RDF style questions.
Manu Sporny: That is very much in-scope
Manu Sporny: Our agenda doesn't preclude anyone from saying, "I'd like to talk about this next week". It is a good idea to open up an issue on this topic and add information so that all of us are primed for that discussion and prepared to provide input.
Matt Stone: Thanks for the discussion we will see everyone next week!