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GSWG Governance Architecture Task Force (GATF)

GSWG Governance Architecture Task Force (GATF)

Owned by Drummond Reed
Last updated: yesterday at 8:03 pm by John Phillips
4 min read

3rd Generation GATF Purpose

The purpose of the GSWG Governance Architecture Task Force (GATF) in its third iteration is to further develop ToIP specifications, tools, templates, and guides for governance of digital trust ecosystems.

In this capacity, the GATF acts as the “R&D arm” for the Ecosystem and Governance Working Group, identifying and exploring areas of opportunity or challenge for governance of ToIP compatible ecosystems.

A major focus of this third generation for GATF is the role of governance in establishing, maintaining and verifying trustworthy interactions across independent ToIP compatible ecosystems.

Past Deliverables

First Generation

The first generation of the GATF, completed in December 2021, developed the foundational requirements for all ToIP-compatible governance frameworks (summarized in this ToIP blog post). Deliverables included:

  1. ToIP Governance Architecture Specification—a specification of the overall layer-independent requirements that any ToIP-compliant governance framework must meet.

  2. ToIP Governance Metamodel—a specification for the standard model for ToIP-compliant governance frameworks.

  3. ToIP Governance Metamodel  Companion Guide—the "instruction manual" for the above.

  4. ToIP Governance Framework Matrix—a tool for governing authorities to plan and organize their work on developing their own ToIP-compliant governance frameworks.

  5. ToIP Governance Framework Matrix Companion Guide—the "instruction manual" for the above.

Second Generation

The second generation of the GATF, completed in December 2024, tackled further specifications and companion guides for specific governance framework components (such as developing an example set of requirements for credential issuers), as well as acting as the curator of the development of the third generation diagrams for the ToIP architecture.

Leadership

This list has been reset. Please add your name to this list if you wish to be a lead of the second-generation GATF:

  • @John Phillips 

Members

This list has been reset. Please add your name to this list if you wish to participate:

  • @John Phillips

  • @Drummond Reed

  • @sankarshan

  • @Neil Thomson

Meeting Schedule

This TF schedules meetings as needed. Each meeting will be announced on the GSWG mailing list and the #governance-architecture-tf Slack channel.

THESE DATES/TIMES ARE BEING REVIEWED AND ARE SUBJECT TO (RE)CONFIRMATION FOR 2025

GATF meetings [days of the week are Pacific Time]:

The meetings are available on the ToIP meeting calendar
ToIP Meeting Calendar (LF hosted)

Deliverables

The following are the research and development areas identified for 3rd Gen GATF attention. For each area, the consideration is “the objective, role and implementation of governance in …”

  1. Trustworthy interactions across independent ecosystems

  2. Enabling trust in Verifiers and Issuers in cross-ecosystem governance

  3. Enabling cross-ecosystem meaning exchange (vocabulary and semantics) - see for example TRQP work

  4. Enabling Trustworthy governance architecture for verifiable identifiers

These areas of focus lead to the following deliverables…

  1. [2025-03-19] Create a complete lifecycle from intake to record on a trust registry for a governance conformance program

  2. [2025-03-19] What are the governance requirements of a trust registry, including the format of records on the trust registry, the structure of authority statements from a governance framework to a trust registry, and exchange of meaning

  3. [2025-04-02] How can governance help enable cross-ecosystem trust (what are the key ingredients for trans-ecosystem trust in terms of governance)

Areas of focus will be discussed in the form of white paper in the first instance, and then, depending on the findings, lead to subsequent identification of deliverables.

The deliverable list documents the agreed deliverables to produced by the GATF team. Each will need to define what document(s) or other artefact(s) needs to be updated or created to achieve the deliverable. An example of this may be updates to the Governance Metamodel.

To help make sense of the work to be done (provide scope and purpose), we will also generate examples of use cases that illustrate the type of problem that we want to solve for. In the first instance, these will be maintained as a Wiki page under the GATF charter, here.

Approach

The GATF should operate like an R&D facility where we need to make sure we tackle the right kind of problems given our purpose and focus and available skillset.

The GATF will operate a Kanban type model of proposed activities, planned (backlog) activities, activities being worked on, and “done” or completed activities. The entry of an activity into the proposed activities for the group can be made by any member of the group. Progression to planned (backlog) list will require that another member second the activity. The proposer and seconder are expected to lead the activity with support from the group.

It is considered essential that the ToIP and GATF both learns from and (if/when appropriate) informs existing trust ecosystem activities. The aim of GATF is to identify and/or create practical, actionable advice that leads to greater adoption of the ToIP governance model. Learning from what is happening in the real world is essential in achieving this outcome. This means that “education” may be a standing activity in the “doing” column. We can add details about the specific education being shared/generated for each meeting.

Milestones

Key milestones for the third-generation deliverables will be determined once the TF gets underway.

Intellectual Property Rights (Copyright, Patent, Source Code)

As a Task Force (TF) of the Governance Stack WG (GSWG), the GATF inherits the IPR terms from the GSWG JDF Charter. These include:

Mailing List and Communications

This task force uses the following for communications

  • Mailing List: This TF does not currently maintain a separate mailing list (but one can be added if needed).

  • Slack: This TF has its own dedicated Slack channel: #governance-architecture-tf

 

 

 

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