2020-09-28 CTWG Meeting Notes

Owned by Drummond Reed
Last updated: Nov 20, 2020
3 min read

We began by Rieks summarizing the five points that the TF had asked for him to explain about the eSSIF-Lab Concepts and Terminology project. 

  • Goals of the project
  • Resources/funding
  • Terminology management software
  • Process that they will be following
  • How the ESSIF Labs Concepts and Terminology project and the ToIP Concepts and Terminology WG could collaborate

Rieks shared the following links about eSSIF-Lab:

Rieks explained that the goal of the EU project 'eSSIF-Lab' is to fund a set of (EU) SME's to work on SSI projects. He shared that the Concepts and Terminology work at eSSIF-Lab does not have its own dedicated funding.

He mentioned a German project that has been maintaining a consolidated terminology for identity and privacy that has had 34 revisions. So it's a big job.

The goal of the project as Rieks explained it is to develop 'purposeful terminology', i.e. terminologies that will actually be used for specific/various purposes, where:

  • Each term has one meaning within one scope (one or more such purposes/objectives).
  • the meaning of a (tangible) term is an (intangible) thought/idea, called a concept. The mapping is called a semantics.
  • An alphabetically sorted list of such terms, which are appropriate to/relevant in one scope, is called a glossary.
  • A similar list of terms from different scopes (which may have multiple meanings) is called a dictionary.
  • A set of ideas/concepts that relate to each other in a way that is meaningful/purposeful in some scope, is called a pattern (or mental model). A pattern is documented using terms from its scope.
  • Understanding each other across scopes requires an understanding of which terms mean what in which scopes. 

Rieks explained that eSSIF-Lab is currently working out its software. Currently they are using Docusaurus. They are currently exploring which kinds of deliverables are 'purposeful', (e.g. patterns, glossaries, dictionaries) and how they may be produced.

Rieks believes that only a small group of people will probably be involved with the concepts/mental model work, but that the use of the deliverables may be(come) pervasive. It will require close attention to the consistency across concepts.

Rieks shared some examples from the area of SSI guardianship. 

He said that feedback from early eSSIF-Lab funded entities includes remarks that the early work does not yet have enough about governance.

With regard to Terminology Management Software, Rieks said they have not made any decision yet, but that they do not plan to write their own software. He is open to whatever works for tooling. His concept is that there is a body of documents that are available to all authors of all ToIP deliverables (or any other author). 

Overlap between eSSIF-Lab Concepts and Terminology and ToIP Concepts and Terminology WG

Rieks sees the two efforts are very closely aligned. Since eSSIF-Lab is a three-year project (two years remaining), he is thinking it may need a landing place, and the ToIP CTWG might be a good home. 

Discussion

Dan Gisolfi asked if the ToIP Concepts and Terminology should view the eSSIF-Lab Concepts and Terminology work is an input. Rieks agreed.

Dan felt that we should establish a data model for the underlying work. But we need to establish an extremely lightweight way to provide inputs to the data model.

Dan offered that what eSSIF-Lab has already done with their eSSIF-Lab Functional Architecture is an input into our WG.

Rieks agreed that eSSIF-Lab's terminology in that document is an input, and they are open to evolving it.

Ultimately, Rieks would like to see one kind of governance over as few repositories as possible for incorporating the corpus of terminologies for generating whatever we need out of it.

Daniel Hardman suggested that If we want to use a professional terminology management product, or if you want to know what features they offer, a good one to study is TRADOS Studio / Multiterm / Termbase.

He suggested that we should work backwards from concrete outputs. Suggestions were:

  • Saturn V TIP Glossary
  • Bedrock Glossary
  • Sovrin Utility Governance Framework Glossary
  • Sovrin Ecosystem Governance Framework Glossary

Daniel Hardman suggested we pick one as a concrete goal. Dan Gisolfi suggested the Bedrock glossary.

 Dan Gisolfisuggested using the Markdown that's already been created for a process.

Drummond Reed said the the Sovrin Glossary is ready to be contributed to this WG and will be deprecated after that so that any work continues here.

Daniel Hardman suggested these steps:

  1. Daniel Hardman will design a way to ingest the Sovrin Glossary into Github.
  2. Dan Gisolfi will input the terms needed for the Bedrock Glossary.
  3. Drummond Reed will provide a liaison to the Sovrin Utility Governance Framework Task Force and Sovrin Ecosystem Governance Framework Task Force to recruit them for the input process.

Daniel Hardman also has a strong vested interest in also using this output to work on Hyperledger Aries RFCs.

We concluded that we'll meet again in our next meeting in 2 weeks. In the meantime we'll work async, with David Luchukhelping to coordinate.