[wg/vc] Verifiable Credentials WG recharter

[iherman]

New charter proposal, reviewers, please take note.

Charter Review

[Charter:] https://w3c.github.io/vc-wg-charter/

[Diff from previous charter:] https://w3c.github.io/vc-wg-charter/diff.html

• [X] Existing WG recharter
• If this is a charter extension or revision, any issue discussion:

The current charter ends in June '24. By then, all Rec track documents should be in CR (the main ones have been in CR for a while already), and the WG is confident to be able to publish the Recommendations in January '25. The original thought was to ask for a simple charter extension. However, the WG has already agreed to set up a maintenance WG once this WG runs out, hence the idea to create a new charter which is, mostly, the same as the current charter, but with the following addition to the scope:

Once all the planned Recommendations have been published, the Working Group will continue in maintenance mode to handle errata. No new Recommendations are planned. Class 4 changes for Recommendations published by the Working Group are out of scope, except if serious security issues come to the fore that require changes in a Recommendation.

I.e., this proposed charter update would save us, and everybody else, an extra administration in 6 -7 months.

Although the diff file shows more changes, they are not substantial. The only other major difference is that the list of rec track deliverables has been updated to reflect the current status. All other changes are administrative, updating some links, etc.

I am not sure that we really need horizontal reviews on the charter. It had been reviewed before the AC vote, and nothing has changed; as emphasized above, there is no intention to do further specification work under this charter.

Comments are preferred on https://github.com/w3c/vc-wg-charter

cc: @brentzundel @pchampin

[iherman]

Just wonder where we are with this... Could TiLT make a decision on this to go forward?

[iherman]

Per the latest WG meeting (https://www.w3.org/2017/vc/WG/Meetings/Minutes/2024-05-15-vcwg#section2-1) the WG did not get to a consensus to go with this charter proposal. As a consequence, I was instructed by the WG to stop this rechartering process and ask for a 6 months extension instead.

@plehegar @brentzundel

[iherman]

@plehegar, the consensus issue at the WG has been resolved. The new, and consensus based, charter proposal is now the one on the relevant repository, i.e.,

[Charter:] https://w3c.github.io/vc-wg-charter/

[Diff from previous charter:] https://w3c.github.io/vc-wg-charter/diff.html

I believe the feedback we received indicates that there is indeed no need for a formal set of horizontal reviews, taking into account the fact that the changes v.a.v. the old charter are minimal. The quote in the original issue above, which is the only relevant (i.e., non-administrative) change now says:

Once all the planned Recommendations have been published (see list of deliverables below), the Working Group will continue in maintenance mode to handle errata. No new Recommendations are planned. Class 4 changes for these Recommendations are out of scope, except:

• Features that had been listed as "At Risk" during the CR phase of the Verifiable Data Model specification, had been removed from the final document due to missing the CR Exit Criteria, but have been developed further by the community providing a possibly adequate consensus and support to be added to the Recommendation. At the time of writing this charter, these terms are: the refreshService, evidence, confidenceMethod, renderMethod, and termsOfUse properties (and related classes like RefreshService, ConfidenceMethod, etc.).
• Serious security issues that arise, requiring changes in a Recommendation.

Can we move to the AC vote on the charter asap? It would be good to have the results available by TPAC?

cc @brentzundel @pchampin

[iherman]

@plehegar any news on https://github.com/w3c/strategy/issues/455#issuecomment-2151507368 ?

[plehegar]

This charter draft needs to go through horizontal reviews, at least giving an opportunity but we could look at moving forward quickly.

[plehegar]

Unless we hear otherwise, we could move to get TiLT approval to start AC in early July.

[iherman]

Just to be clear, you meant "start AC Vote" early July, right?