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w3c-ccg / did-spec

Please see README.md for latest version being developed by W3C DID WG.
https://w3c.github.io/did-core/
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If I may share my "2 cents" on the matter: #183

Closed pepoospina closed 5 years ago

pepoospina commented 5 years ago

If I may share my "2 cents" on the matter:

Although I agree with @talltree on the actual purpose of DIDs (aiming to represent "enduring, stable and resilient identifiers") I also think "practicality beats purity", in which case there are evident real use cases for "simple DIDs", especially when dealing with networks such as Ethereum. A DID on such a platform might provide as much abstraction (and complex functionality) as needed if the proper on-chain and offchain architecture is in place, but also simplifications such as regarding a public key (or more precisely an ethereum address in this case) as a valid DID (even for short-term usage) are a valuable possibility to consider. After all, they are still identifiers and still decentralized. Leaving these cases out of the DID specs poses a limitation on compatibility, when just including those would give room for these simple methods to enjoy all the DID-related features of the ecosystem that is being developed.

It is my appreciation that the most important aspect of DIDs are the quality to serve as public identifiers whose ownership can be (cryptographically) proved, in wich case public keys fit accordingly as probably the most simple case of DID. Additionally, as already mentioned, this level of flexibility allow these simple methods to evolve or increasingly incorporate other complex functionality and/or abstraction layers even if starting as (or still allowing) simple public keys as the most basic case.

In relation to this, it occurs to me that (following the Ethereum network example) some methods could still provide delete functionality by means of a "revocation registry" smart contract where DID-addresses could be "self-destroyed", still being valid network addresses yet not valid DIDs according to their corresponding method. Again, future functionality can be added around simple addresses (or public keys) that eventually give place to deletion or update methods, but limiting these simple cases beforehand might unnecessarily restrict the applicability of decentralized identity, especially in this early phase.

Looking forward to know all other opinions on this regard.

Originally posted by @cbruguera in https://github.com/w3c-ccg/did-spec/pull/55#issuecomment-377192357

pepoospina commented 5 years ago

sorry, created by mistake, feel free to delete this.