Subject: [apps-discuss] The webfinger and the acct: scheme documents

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 09:29:12 -0700

Greetings,

APPSAWG has now sent three documents, half of its recent docket, to the
IESG for IETF Last Call.  We have three open documents remaining:

draft-ietf-appsawg-malformed-mail
draft-ietf-appsawg-json-pointer
draft-ietf-appsawg-json-patch

These remain in active development.  Having cleared those other three
documents, we'd like to bring in and begin processing webfinger, which
we've been holding outside the WG until we cleared some backlog.  I'd like
to thank the authors and participants for their patience as we worked
through those other projects, and the rest of you for your work in getting
the others off to the next steps in their lifecycle.

The authors of draft-jones-appsawg-webfinger are invited to submit
draft-ietf-appsawg-webfinger-00, and we'll approve it.

Now, a question: The "acct:" scheme URI work is an offshoot of webfinger.
PSA has recently posted a document that separates that work out.  So what
is working group consensus: Should these be processed as two documents in
parallel (and should APPSAWG take them on), or should they be processed as
a single document?

-MSK, APPSAWG co-chair

---

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:44:48 -0600

On 7/2/12 10:29 AM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:

> Now, a question: The "acct:" scheme URI work is an offshoot of
> webfinger.  PSA has recently posted a document that separates that work
> out.  So what is working group consensus: Should these be processed as
> two documents in parallel (and should APPSAWG take them on), or should
> they be processed as a single document?

Clarifying question: since the chairs have invited the authors of the
WebFinger I-D to submit it as a WG item, I assume that the question
"should APPSAWG take them on" does not apply to the WebFinger I-D, but
only to the 'acct' URI I-D.

FWIW, I authored a separate spec for the 'acct' URI scheme because I
understood from the list discussion that the 'acct' URI *could* be used
by protocols other than WebFinger. If that is true, then it seems to me
preferable to work on the WebFinger protocol and the 'acct' URI scheme
as separate documents. If that is false, then I think they belong in the
same specification. Personally I'm unclear as to whether the 'acct' URI
scheme is tightly coupled to WebFinger protocol, so I think we need to
figure that out first before deciding whether to proceed with two
documents or one.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

---

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 10:14:29 -0700

> only to the 'acct' URI I-D.

Yes, sorry.

> figure that out first before deciding whether to proceed with two
Right, that's part-and-parcel of the question I'm asking.

-MSK

---

From: Mike Jones <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 17:14:56 +0000

I would like to add support to submitting your acct: draft as a working group document.

While WebFinger will have a normative dependency on it, it's actually independent of WebFinger and so can and should be considered separately.

				Best wishes,
				-- Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Peter Saint-Andre
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2012 9:45 AM
To: Murray S. Kucherawy
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [apps-discuss] The webfinger and the acct: scheme documents

On 7/2/12 10:29 AM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:

> webfinger.  PSA has recently posted a document that separates that 
> work out.  So what is working group consensus: Should these be 
> processed as two documents in parallel (and should APPSAWG take them 
> on), or should they be processed as a single document?

Clarifying question: since the chairs have invited the authors of the WebFinger I-D to submit it as a WG item, I assume that the question "should APPSAWG take them on" does not apply to the WebFinger I-D, but only to the 'acct' URI I-D.

FWIW, I authored a separate spec for the 'acct' URI scheme because I understood from the list discussion that the 'acct' URI *could* be used by protocols other than WebFinger. If that is true, then it seems to me preferable to work on the WebFinger protocol and the 'acct' URI scheme as separate documents. If that is false, then I think they belong in the same specification. Personally I'm unclear as to whether the 'acct' URI scheme is tightly coupled to WebFinger protocol, so I think we need to figure that out first before deciding whether to proceed with two documents or one.

Peter

--
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

_______________________________________________
apps-discuss mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss

---

From: Bob Wyman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 13:52:47 -0400

I would appreciate it greatly if someone could suggest a number of useful
use-cases for acct: without WebFinger.

What use is independence if that independence provides no utility?

bob wyman

On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Mike Jones <[email-masked]>wrote:

> While WebFinger will have a normative dependency on it, it's actually
> independent of WebFinger and so can and should be considered separately.
>
>                                 Best wishes,
>                                 -- Mike
>
> WebFinger I-D to submit it as a WG item, I assume that the question "should
> APPSAWG take them on" does not apply to the WebFinger I-D, but only to the
> 'acct' URI I-D.
>
> understood from the list discussion that the 'acct' URI *could* be used by
> protocols other than WebFinger. If that is true, then it seems to me
> preferable to work on the WebFinger protocol and the 'acct' URI scheme as
> separate documents. If that is false, then I think they belong in the same
> specification. Personally I'm unclear as to whether the 'acct' URI scheme
> is tightly coupled to WebFinger protocol, so I think we need to figure that
> out first before deciding whether to proceed with two documents or one.
>
> Peter
>
> --
> Peter Saint-Andre
> https://stpeter.im/
>
>
>
>

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 14:13:16 -0400

The main use case I see for acct: is SAML and SAML-like specifications
that currently end up using mailto:

I don't see WebFinger as being the driver at all. It is not a
specification I am very interested in as  'public information about
Bob' is a subset of 'information that Alice is permitted to know about
Bob.'

On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Bob Wyman <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> specification. Personally I'm unclear as to whether the 'acct' URI scheme is
>> tightly coupled to WebFinger protocol, so I think we need to figure that out
>> first before deciding whether to proceed with two documents or one.
>>
>> Peter
>>
>> --
>> Peter Saint-Andre
>> https://stpeter.im/
>>
>>
>>
>>

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

---

From: elf Pavlik <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2012 20:36:21 +0000

> What use is independence if that independence provides no utility?
<thinking-aloud>
  i wonder if webfinger could specify handling acct: for HTTP, but other protocols?(SIP, XMPP, PSYC[1], ...) could maybe also use generic acct:
  <sidetracking>with developments like WebID[2] maybe i could use same ssl cert just with acct: in SAN and authenticate on this account to various services...</sidetracking>
<thinking-aloud>

~elf-pavlik~

[1] http://psyced.org/
[2] http://webid.info/

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 17:16:46 -0400

I think it will go a long way to prevent future nonsense like OpenID
where we were told that users wanted to use a URL as their account
reference (not!) and then that we needed an alias scheme (XRI) to make
the URLs palatable.

Representing account identifiers as URIs in the protocol makes sense.
Expecting users to type them in is stupid on rollerskates.

---

From: John Bradley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 20:00:44 -0400

As I have said several times,  having the acct: draft as a working group document will help clarify the issues and bring this to a resolution.

John B.

---

From: Nat Sakimura <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 09:55:51 +0900

I think having acct: as a separate documents are going to be cleaner and
more accommodating for other specs to make use of it.

Nat

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 3:13 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>wrote:

> >> From: [email-masked] [mailto:
> [email-masked]]
> >> On Behalf Of Peter Saint-Andre
> "should
> by
> as

-- 
Nat Sakimura (=nat)
Chairman, OpenID Foundation
http://nat.sakimura.org/
@_nat_en

---

From: "Martin J. Dürst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Jul 2012 10:57:15 +0900

I was leaning towards having only one document for webfinger and acct:, 
but now that Peter has created a separate one for acct: (which means we 
have a document author), let's just move ahead with both as WG documents.

Regards,   Martin.

---

From: "Paul E. Jones" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 01:34:52 -0400

Murray,

Thanks for the invitation.  I prepared a revised version of the text as -00.
This version contains text changes discussed on the list and, most
importantly, removal of the 'acct' URI scheme definition and a reference to
Peter's document.

Paul

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Murray S. Kucherawy
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2012 12:29 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [apps-discuss] The webfinger and the acct: scheme documents

Greetings,

APPSAWG has now sent three documents, half of its recent docket, to the IESG
for IETF Last Call.  We have three open documents remaining:

These remain in active development.  Having cleared those other three
documents, we'd like to bring in and begin processing webfinger, which we've
been holding outside the WG until we cleared some backlog.  I'd like to
thank the authors and participants for their patience as we worked through
those other projects, and the rest of you for your work in getting the
others off to the next steps in their lifecycle.

Now, a question: The "acct:" scheme URI work is an offshoot of webfinger.
PSA has recently posted a document that separates that work out.  So what is
working group consensus: Should these be processed as two documents in
parallel (and should APPSAWG take them on), or should they be processed as a
single document?

-MSK, APPSAWG co-chair

---

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 22:37:28 -0700

On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 10:34 PM, Paul E. Jones <[email-masked]>wrote:

> Thanks for the invitation.  I prepared a revised version of the text as
> -00.  This version contains text changes discussed on the list and, most
> importantly, removal of the ‘acct’ URI scheme definition and a reference to
> Peter’s document.
>
>
>
It's been approved.  I've also emailed the secretariat to ask them to show
the older document as replaced by this one.

-MSK

---

From: Henry Story <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2012 23:41:50 +0200

On 2 Jul 2012, at 23:16, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> Expecting users to type them in is stupid on roller-skates.

With WebID over TLS the user does not need to type his identifier, just a point and click
will do, as shown clearly in the video on http://webid.info/

WebID can also work with acct: url schemes, as a few people on the WebID community group have shown.
http://www.w3.org/community/webid/

IT's just that when you don't need to type the account URL, then there is no issue anymore 
passing in a URL for the account home page directly into the X509 certificate, which can
be however complicated you wish it to be - since it will never get typed. 

The spec is on http://webid.info/spec/ and we have a nice implementation at 
http://my-profile.eu/ . Looking forward to many more implementations...

Henry

>>>> out first before deciding whether to proceed with two documents or one.

Social Web Architect
http://bblfish.net/

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 11:19:13 -0400

> figure that out first before deciding whether to proceed with two

I think it's important to keep the "acct" definition, if we retain it,
as a separate document.  As Nat points out, it's useful for
referencing the URI scheme separately.  We've had problems in the past
where something that we thought to be part of a protocol wound up, a
few years later, as having other uses.  It meant that other protocol
had a normative reference to a protocol they had nothing to do with,
only for the purpose of referring to that one useful feature.

Separating it into its own document has also focused discussion on
issues specific to the URI scheme, rather than diluting things by
putting it in as a short section in another document.

As the AD who will be responsible for these documents, I strongly urge
y'all to leave the "acct" specification as a separate document.

Barry