Web Identity and Discovery [WebID]

Bootstrapped from [= Melvin's draft =]
Tracking conversation in [= Meaning of the term WebID =]

This specification defines a standard means by which user agents and servers interact to establish a user's identity, ensuring a structured, decentralized approach for identity discovery on the web.

Bootstrapped from [= Melvin's draft =]
relationship between format and feature subspecs is being discussed in [= Orthogonality of format subspecs vs. feature subspecs =] and [= Relationship between superspec and subspecs =]
Use of IRI as per [= URL vs. URI vs. IRI =]

Introduction

This specification delineates an HTTP IRI denoting an Agent that, when dereferenced, leads to an RDF document describing such Agent.

This specification aims to act as a succinct, adaptable framework, achieving universality and broad applicability without necessitating further modifications to the primary specification. To this end, it encompasses an open-ended list of [= Extension Profiles =].

Bootstrapped from [= Basic definitions =]
Changed to address [= Circularity concerns =]
Usage of unambiguously is being discussed in [= Use of the term unambiguously =]
Use of IRI as per [= URL vs. URI vs. IRI =]
Moved further description of what Profile Documents should consist of to dedicated section as it was getting to complex to fit here
Todo: definition of Agent, currently taken from foaf:Agent

Definitions

WebID: An identifier in the form of an HTTP IRI for naming an [= Agent =] which, when dereferenced, must always lead to a [= Profile Document =] describing the [= Agent =] named by the WebID itself.
Profile Document: An RDF document that describes an [= Agent =].
Agent: A thing that does stuff.

WebIDs and Profile Documents

A WebID denotes an [= Agent =], an entity whose nature is different from that of a document, while ultimately dereferencing to an actual document - an [= Profile Document =] - that describes such [= Agent =]. This specification models this relationship according to the guidelines on IRIs for documents and real-world objects defined in [[cooluris]].

For WebIDs with fragment identifiers, requests made against each WebID stripped of its fragment identifier MUST dereference to the respective [= Profile Document =]. Client HTTP libraries conforming to the HTTP standard will automatically strip the fragment before sending requests to the server.

For WebIDs without fragment identifiers, requests made against each WebID MUST dereference to the respective [= Profile Document =] by means of redirection. Each request MUST be answered with the `303 See Other` status code and the `Location` header set to an IRI that MUST dereference to the respective [= Profile Document =].

Contents of Profile Documents discussed in [= Ontologies and statements RFC =] and [= primaryTopic vs isPrimaryTopicOf =]
Relationship between the spec, serialization formats and extension profiles touched upon in [= Subsets of the superset =] and [= Relationship between primary spec and Extension Profiles =]
Serialization formats were the primary topic that started the long discussion thread [= Required RDF serialization of WebID resource =], which indicates convergence towards a MUST on Turtle and JSON-LD for publishers.
`foaf:Agent` introduced in support of the possibility of implementing the primary spec without necessariy also implementing one of the authentication-related Extension Profiles (see Nathan's view in [= Implementability concerns =] and [= Relationship between primary spec and Extension Profiles =]) while limited to a SHOULD to preserve backward compatibility
Choice of `foaf` mainly driven by backward compatibility with existing implementations and the fact that it is still under active maintenance (see [= State of FOAF =]).

Content and format of Profile Documents

A Profile Document MUST qualify the described [= Agent =] as the document's `foaf:primaryTopic`.

Furthermore, a Profile Document SHOULD also qualify the described [= Agent =] as having type `foaf:Agent`.

Publishers of Profile Documents MUST use Turtle or JSON-LD when explicitly requested by consumers.

The following snippet of code exemplifies a minimal Profile Document using JSON-LD.

            {
              "@context": {
                "foaf": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
              },
              "@id": "https://example.com/rose",
              "foaf:primaryTopic": {
                "@id": "https://example.com/rose#me",
                "@type": "Agent",
                "foaf:name": "Rose Anderson"
              }
            }

Interested readers may play around with this example at the JSON-LD playground .

relationship between format and feature subspecs is being discussed in [= Orthogonality of format subspecs vs. feature subspecs =] and [= Relationship between superspec and subspecs =]
format subspecs to be specified by the WebID CG are being discussed in [= Subsets of the Superset =]
todo: link to WebID-TLS

Extension Profiles

Following the note on Spec Variability by the W3C Working Group, sub-specifications may build on top of the WebID specification by defining Extension Profiles in support of specific features, such as in the case of user authentication via WebID-TLS.

Status of this document