joshuakoran
commented
2 years ago Defining "DECENTRALIZATION"
We agree that the term “decentralization” has different meanings to different groups within and beyond the W3C. During the TPAC 2021 session on Vision and Values it was agreed to create a glossary of terms to provide consistent meaning for such terms. This will provide better guidance to proposals and working groups to define the building blocks that enable multiple, distributed authors to build the one web we want.
From personal experience, I was part of a group that drafted a charter for the Decentralized Web Interest Group [DIG] last year. Following debate [DIG Issues], mainly concerning the name, and with much support from those that are not normally part of these discussions, we agreed to pause the charter work to determine if the goals can be incorporated into the Vision and Values of a renewed W3C.
This post contains some existing quotes that illustrate how the term “decentralization” has been used to aid in creating this definition, given our current draft “does not favor centralization.”
The term “decentralization” has been used by our W3C Director to cover at least two related concepts:
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“This decentralization of software development was and always will be crucial to its unimpeded growth. It also prevents the Web itself from coming under the control of a given company or government through control of the software. Communication standards give people a choice of software, but we must all learn to be aware of when our experience is being controlled by software with a bias.” [TBL 2002 Lecture]
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“I accept this as an endorsement of the spirit of the Web; of building it in a decentralized way; of making best efforts to keep it open and fair; and of ensuring its fundamental technologies are available to all for broad use and innovation, and without having to pay licensing fees.” [TBL Knighthood]
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“Principles such as simplicity and modularity are the stuff of software engineering; decentralization and tolerance are the life and breath of Internet.” [TBL Principles]
The key emphasis in the above is on both distributed development and modular “fundamental” components that can be freely chosen by authors to craft user experiences across the open web, where “free” means freedom from the control of any single company or government.
Some documents referring to “decentralization” state we want to “minimize” these centralized points of control and authority, [EthicalWeb] while others instead emphasize that web architecture should “prevent” [Web Service Choreography] or “eliminate the requirement for centralized authorities” or such “bottlenecks.” [DID],[7Points]
The rationale behind the formal approach is to build interoperable communication that does not depend on permission of centralized authorities, [RDF Primer] or restrictions from “control” that “centralized… dominant platforms” pose to people accessing a “rich selection of blogs and websites”. [TBL Web Birthday]
Some documents referring to “decentralization” state we want to support “distributed systems” and “society,” [7Points], [DID], [DIG Charter], [SOAP] while others emphasize we should support individual developers and “developers at large organizations”. [EthicalWeb]
Some documents referring to “decentralization” state we want to support independent “authors” and “websites,” [DID],[7Points] while others emphasize “platforms” to facilitate or mediate information exchange among decentralized actors. [EthicalWeb]
It is interesting to note that while web “authors” and “sites” are explicit in the DID and 7 Points documents, they are not mentioned as active participants within the Ethical Web Principles document. Instead, these important actors are merely alluded to by “priority of constituencies” and as “websites” and “sites.” When discussing “community,” the Ethical Web Principles also emphasizes “platforms” rather than “authors” when people or organizations (such as news organizations) exercise their freedom of expression.
Decentralization is at the heart of the Internet’s design. Many of us also believe it ought to be for the web as well. [TBL Knighthood, 7 Points]
We may also want to distinguish “federated” (and hence non-uniform, autonomous components that can still exchange information over common interfaces) from “decentralized” in reference to the web. [EthicalWeb Issues]
My hope is that by better defining “decentralization,” we can align on the values and vision on how it can be protected and preserved as part of the open web.
-- References –
[7 Points] The W3C in 7 Points (last snapshot 2021), http://web.archive.org/web/20210507094551/http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Points: “Decentralization is a principle of modern distributed systems, including societies. In a centralized system, every message or action has to pass through a central authority, causing bottlenecks when the traffic increases. In design, we therefore limit the number of central Web facilities to reduce the vulnerability of the Web as a whole. Flexibility is the necessary companion of distributed systems, and the life and breath of the Internet, not just the Web.”
[DID] Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0 (2021), https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core
[DIG] Decentralized Web Interest Group Charter, (2020), https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/blob/gh-pages/decentralized-charter.html: “For a decentralized system to properly function, each system component must interact and function in a consistent, reliable, and stable fashion. Standards enable these decentralized components to interact and function as if they were an integrated, centralized system. Without the proper assessment, changes to web standards can thus have significant impacts on people, industries and societies that are challenging for any one individual or group to foresee.
Where changes to web standards impact stakeholder groups that are underrepresented within the W3C these unintended consequences are often missed or discovered late in the process.
To address this challenge, DWIG develops guidelines to assist specification authors in identifying, balancing and mitigating unintended consequences early in the specification development process. This input enables proposal authors to address those concerns that might otherwise be raised later as issues or objections, thus reducing the overall time from proposal to consensus.”
[DIG Issues] - https://github.com/w3c/charter-drafts/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+%5Bdecentralized%5D
[EthicalWeb], Ethical Web Principles (2001), https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles: “As part of this, we favor a decentralized web architecture that minimizes single points of failure and single points of control. We will also build web technologies for individual developers as well for developers at large companies and organizations. The web should enable do-it-yourself developers.”
[EthicalWeb Issues] https://github.com/w3ctag/ethical-web-principles/issues/54
[RDF Primer] RDF Primer (2004), W3C Recommendation 10 February 2004, https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-primer
https://www.w3.org/2003/06/soap12-pressrelease.html.en: “Data transport is central to modern computing in the networked, decentralized, and distributed environment that is the Web.”
[SOAP] World Wide Web Consortium Issues SOAP Version 1.2 as a W3C Recommendation (2003), https://www.w3.org/2003/06/soap12-pressrelease
[TBL 2002 Lecture] Tim, BL, The World Wide Web - Past Present and Future (2002), https://www.w3.org/2002/04/Japan/Lecture.html
[TBL Knighthood] W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee to be Knighted by Queen Elizabeth (2003), https://www.w3.org/2003/12/timbl_knighted
[TBL Principles] Tim, BL, Principles of Design (2013), https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Principles.html
[TBL Web Birthday] Web Foundation (2008), https://webfoundation.org/2018/03/web-birthday-29
[Web Service Choreography] Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) 1.0 (2002), W3C Note 8 August 2002, https://www.w3.org/TR/wsci
Idea raised by Jennie Delisi in the TPAC session on Values - for terms that are subject to many interpretations like decentralization, we should have a glossary to clearly define.