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JSON-LD WG

Minutes for 2023-12-13

Present
Ted Thibodeau Jr., David I. Lehn, Benjamin Young, Gregg Kellogg, Dave Longley, Anatoly Scherbakov, Pierre-Antoine Champin, Niklas Lindström
Chair(s)
Gregg Kellogg, Benjamin Young
Scribe(s)
Anatoly Scherbakov, Pierre-Antoine Champin, Gregg Kellogg
Agenda
https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/1ab7df94-bb06-440e-a6b9-bc9022018c57/20231213T120000/
Topics
  1. Announcements and Introductions
  2. Updates from the CG
  3. Plans/desire to publish Best Practices doc, YAML-LD, and a CBOR-related specification
Resolutions
  1. Bring Digital Bazaar's CBOR-LD 1.0 editor's draft https://digitalbazaar.github.io/cbor-ld-spec/ into the JSON-LD CG for future work.
  2. Recharter the JSON-LD WG to focus on YAML-LD and CBOR-LD
Anatoly Scherbakov is scribing.
Benjamin Young: We are going to discuss the future of the WG, future publications and the road ahead

Topic: Announcements and Introductions

Benjamin Young: Any announcements or introductions?
Gregg Kellogg: YAML-LD Final Report was published yesterday. Posted on CG blog on it.
Ted Thibodeau Jr.: I/scribe+/scribe: anatoly-scherbakov
Manu Sporny: Hello and greetings!
Dave Longley: Great to see everyone!

Topic: Updates from the CG

Benjamin Young: Any further updates from the CG for Dave and Manu?
Gregg Kellogg: CG was working on YAML-LD, and driving JSON-LD issues.
Gregg Kellogg: Latest ones revolve around `@nest` and scoped contexts.
Gregg Kellogg: We introduced CBOR-LD a few weeks ago and discussed it a bit last week. Looking forward to hear about DigitalBazaar's work on that.
Benjamin Young: Thanks! A lot of work has accumulated to the point that we're looking into formalizing it.
Pierre-Antoine Champin: I discussed with colleagues about Linked Data in WoT scenarios; they're interested in CBOR-LD and might join the WG.
Niklas Lindström: We've been talking about JSON-LD-Star and RDF-Star and thinking how to integrate these.

Topic: Plans/desire to publish Best Practices doc, YAML-LD, and a CBOR-related specification

Benjamin Young: Let's start with low-hanging fruit

Subtopic: Best Practices

Benjamin Young: The question about Best Practices has been there for a while. Do we need to post it as a separate note?
Pierre-Antoine Champin: I agree; I need to check with the charter and not everyone might agree
Gregg Kellogg: There was never a resolution to publish the BP as a Note. It shows the last published version and that leads to a 404. Might be a problem with ReSpec
Gregg Kellogg: We can certainly publish it as a Draft Note, even if it is incomplete
Gregg Kellogg: There is also a Best Practices document in the CG but it's been removed from the UI
Benjamin Young: Do they differ?
Gregg Kellogg: They're different
Benjamin Young: Maybe some resolving is in order. The Charter only spells out maintenance of JSON-LD normative documents and also allows non-normative documents
Benjamin Young: To make YAML-LD and CBOR-LD normative we need to move formally as a group to re-charter

Subtopic: YAML-LD

Pierre-Antoine Champin is scribing.
Gregg Kellogg is scribing.
Anatoly Scherbakov: Nice to meet Manu and Dave
... is it ok for the group to be named JSON-LD if we extend the scope to YAML-LD, CBOR-LD... ?
... Should we find an Umbrella term?
Manu Sporny: I agree with Anatoly, we should shift the WG name given the expanded scope.
Dave Longley: JSON-LD and others! WG :)? ... JSON-LD and Derivatives WG (doesn't sound as friendly)
... Also other formats such as CSV, Parquet... could be addressed.
Manu Sporny: Agree with Anatoly, makes sense to rename the group to focus on expanded scope
Dave Longley: Expanded JSON-LD Universe WG
Gregg Kellogg: There is a standard for CSV for LD, its ten years old and has moderate use
Gregg Kellogg: "Tabular data on the web" it is. It probably needs to be revisited, needs periodic updates. I think though that CBOR is definitely inspired by JSON, YAML and JSON developed together
Gregg Kellogg: It might be confusing to try to come up with some other name (Linked Data Working Group? - that is too broad maybe)
Dave Longley: JSON-LD Umbrella WG
Gregg Kellogg: But we can probably stick with the JSON-LD as group name as we're working on things closely related to JSON-LD
Benjamin Young: Agree, and let's move on though
Niklas Lindström: I agree this is a tricky question; I am leaning towards what Gregg said. One the reasons of JSON-LD success is because it is RDF channeled through JSON
Gregg Kellogg: CSV on the web came out before JSON-LD 1.0 was standardized
Niklas Lindström: CSV on the Web saw lower adoption. Something about JSON is very useful, I do not know how to call it more abstractly so that it rings as well as it does now
Niklas Lindström: There's something in the simplicity of JSON-LD itself
Gregg Kellogg: INFRA-LD
Niklas Lindström: Leaving JSON behind we miss the point how we got here
Niklas Lindström: "Not-XML-LD"
Dave Longley: JSON-LD and Friends
Pierre-Antoine Champin: My own opinion: I agree Tabular Data on the Web would deserve a refresh. Having one group for all kinds of data formats wouldn't be optimal though. We are focusing on JSON, one particular shape of data
Manu Sporny: Agree that we need to focus in the new WG.
Benjamin Young: +1
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Other concerns, other languages, should probably be addressed by other groups
Pierre-Antoine Champin: JSON-LD WG should care about JSON and very similar formats
Dave Longley: +1 That JSON-LD is the unifier / north star / commonality
Benjamin Young: Thanks everyone! Let'
Benjamin Young: Thanks everyone! Let's keep JSON in focus
Gregg Kellogg:
Gregg Kellogg:
Benjamin Young: CG report for YAML-LD published, thanks Gregg! what's the future of this format in the WG?
Dave Longley: +1 To YAML-LD going standards track
Manu Sporny: I support YAML-LD to go to Standards Track, as long as someone can help moving it through the process
Manu Sporny: It provides a signal that we're onto something, these patterns are useful in other syntaxes, it allows the RDF data model to shine
Manu Sporny: In the other syntaxes you can express the same data model: JSON-LD - YAML-LD - CBOR-LD and back, that's a good thing
Manu Sporny: We should take this to Standards Track. What about implementations?
Gregg Kellogg is scribing.
Anatoly Scherbakov: The first implementation of YAML-LD is probably gkellogg's
... I'm developing a Python implementation, based on PYLD, alpha stage at this point.
... It passes the YAML-LD test suite. My next step is to run the JSON-LD test suite.
... I'm using it in a little project of mine: browser and knowledge workspace for LD, mostly based on YAML-LD.
Niklas Lindström: This gets us two baseline implementations. Moving through WG will be about that. Any other notices about implementations?

Subtopic: CBOR-LD & JSON-LD in CBOR

Benjamin Young: Let's move on to CBOR-LD. The questions about it are centered about progressing CBOR-LD spec to match implementations
Benjamin Young: What level of compression should we use?
Dave Longley: I believe there are three implementations, one in Rust, one in Java
Manu Sporny: Putting the link about CBOR-LD abortions. There are presentations from 2020 we published, they go over the basics. CBOR-LD has 2-3 implementations so far: JS, Rust and something else
Dave Longley: One in JavaScript
Manu Sporny: Primary reason was Verifiable Credentials, we had a program in the US with the National Association of Convenience Stores about digital age verification program
Manu Sporny: The goal was privacy preserving age verification
Manu Sporny: So that we can prove your age without disclosing any other PII
Manu Sporny: That was in 2018-2019. One of the things they needed was ability to scan the verifiable credential which was a JSON-LD document
Manu Sporny: Thus we needed a very high density bar code so that the old hardware can scan and handle it, we needed to get a JSON-LD document down to 350 bytes
Manu Sporny: That's why CBOR-LD came into existence, we needed to compress digitally signed JSON-LD so that it could fit into a QR code. We're now in production
Manu Sporny: About 4-6 months ago, California department of Motor Vehicles launched their digital driver's license which includes a CBOR-LD QR code
Manu Sporny: In California you can now show that QR code which is CBOR-LD and prove your age
Anatoly Scherbakov: Well IMHO that's really super cool
Manu Sporny: The rollout is still happening but I wanted to make a point that it is already in production and in practical use
Manu Sporny: We put a version number on the version that's out there so that W3C WG can introduce breaking changes in a new version
Manu Sporny: Spec is not in a good shape, it is out of date from the implementation
Dave Longley: -Q
Manu Sporny: We've talked about the plan to merge the changes in current spec and the reality of implementations
Manu Sporny: We have an uncompressed mode in the spec. Even that saves a number of bytes, but compression is what the real users are interested in
Manu Sporny: We also are working with governments about integrating CBOR-LD into their digital ID systems
Manu Sporny: That's kind of where we are with CBOR-LD
Gregg Kellogg: I think the two different documents address different things. Pierre-Antoine's expresses basic JSON with CBOR compatible with JSON-LD. DigitalBazaar's version is mostly about how you provide that with semantic compaction.
Gregg Kellogg: YAML-LD sets a pattern we probably want to stick with — it is mostly API centric
Gregg Kellogg: It mostly involves transformation between YAML and JSON-LD Internal Representation. Compression doesn't happen in CBOR, it can happen in Internal Representation
Gregg Kellogg: A concern I had: CBOR-LD 1.0 version doesn't have a parallel in core CBOR
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Gregg summarized this very well
Dave Longley: About magic numbers: current implementations have tags indicating their CBOR-LD and version numbers
Dave Longley: Implementations support that; not sure if spec reflects it
Gregg Kellogg: The current spec doesn't detail that. Not sure how the tag structure with JSON-LD in it extracted from a CBOR document is distinguished against any other CBOR structure
Manu Sporny: CBOR has a registry, tags are registered there, what we need is to request new numbers in the registry which are granted on first come first serve basis. You don't need an official structure to claim them
Manu Sporny: If we're an official WG it makes it even easier to register our signature bytes in the CBOR tags registry
Benjamin Young: Do we want to move forward as chartered, keeping YAML-LD as a Note or a Draft Note, and bringing CBOR-LD spec to the status of a Note?
Benjamin Young: Or we feel we are ready to bring these to Standards Track sooner and recharter the WG at this point?

Subtopic: rechartering?

Gregg Kellogg: I think there is sufficient implementation done for both to move to the Recommendation Track
Dave Longley: +1 To gregg
Gregg Kellogg: I do not know if publishing CBOR-LD as a Note makes a difference. Bringing it to Rec Track will improve visibility and hopefully drive participation
Gregg Kellogg: Updated Charter should also help other things, like fostering JSON-LD specs
Gregg Kellogg: Charter doesn't specifically need to mention RDF-Star
Benjamin Young: Currently the charter only calls for maintenance, i.e. non breaking changes
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Errata is appropriate; not sure how breaking a change might be to fix a bug
Pierre-Antoine Champin: The Note track and the Rec track are meant for different kinds of documents
Pierre-Antoine Champin: It would be a pushback if we post a spec as a Note and then move it to Rec
Pierre-Antoine Champin: It is Rec material. Falling back to Note track if we are not allowed to push it to Rec wouldn't work. It is a document meant to be a Recommendation, not a Best Practices, not a Note
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Even if we could, having it on Note track can do it better than a CG report
Pierre-Antoine Champin: We will continue working on it in the CG of course until the WG is allowed to take it to Rec track
Manu Sporny: We want to move CBOR-LD out of digiatlbazaar github repo and move it to JSON-LD Github repo
Manu Sporny: Can we do that? secondly, CBOR-LD is way behind where YAML-LD spec is. Problem is, many of us are heads down in Verifiable Credentials WG trying to get about five specs to Rec track
Manu Sporny: We do not have much bandwidth to work on this spec. Maybe it becomes easier next summer
Manu Sporny: We're discussing going into production with CBOR-LD systems with national and state governments. They don't necessarily want to wait until the standard is done
Manu Sporny: But they want an acknowledgement of W3C that W3C is looking forward to standardize CBOR-LD
Manu Sporny: CBOR-LD as a Note doesn't make a lot of sense, we'd like it to go to Rec track
Manu Sporny: A new WG charter mentioning CBOR-LD could be a signal to the governments and buy us a bit of time to get the spec into proper shape
Manu Sporny: YAML-LD is further along and we could recharter the group putting both in scope, and focus on YAML-LD first then switching to CBOR-LD later
Manu Sporny: And we only have 6 months to get CBOR-LD done
Pierre-Antoine Champin: +1
Manu Sporny: Publishing a new charter would be a positive signal to the community that we're working on these
Niklas Lindström: +1
Niklas Lindström: Sounds like a good idea. I think what we define should be very minimalistic, kind of glue code defining the serialization.
Niklas Lindström: This could also say that JSON-LD is beyond JSON. Contextual Compaction of Linked Data with a kind of Framing is the overarching theme here
Benjamin Young: Suggesting we take an action today to bring CBOR-LD into CG space
Benjamin Young: Let's start its life there, it will need much discussion and activity
Gregg Kellogg: Nominally it's a CG action but we are highly overlapped and we can resolve to do that
Manu Sporny: Agree, gkellogg -- we should write all of the concerns / issues we have down into the issue tracker
Gregg Kellogg: Manu mentioned that there are open issues with the spec. Would be great if github issues reflect those. this will make it easier for people to contribute
PROPOSAL: Bring Digital Bazaar's CBOR-LD 1.0 editor's draft https
Manu Sporny: +1
Anatoly Scherbakov: +1
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Dave Longley: +1
Ted Thibodeau Jr.: +1
Niklas Lindström: +1
Pierre-Antoine Champin: +1
Benjamin Young: +1
David I. Lehn: +1
RESOLUTION: Bring Digital Bazaar's CBOR-LD 1.0 editor's draft https://digitalbazaar.github.io/cbor-ld-spec/ into the JSON-LD CG for future work.
Ted Thibodeau Jr.: Technically, "adopt Digital Bazaar's CBOR-LD"
Benjamin Young: Resolved. David you apparently hold the super powers, can you do the actual moving please?
David I. Lehn: Eventually it will be moved to W3C and we will have to move it again?
Gregg Kellogg: Yes if the WG is rechartered. We'll move the repos from the CG to the WG github org, but this might take months
David I. Lehn: This will mean broken links
Benjamin Young: We can't get it into W3C repo now because it is CG material
Benjamin Young: There is an ambient consensus about rechartering
Gregg Kellogg: Let's do a proposal
PROPOSAL: Recharter the JSON-LD WG to focus on YAML-LD and CBOR-LD
Manu Sporny: +1
Anatoly Scherbakov: +1
Dave Longley: +1
Gregg Kellogg: +1
Pierre-Antoine Champin: +1
Benjamin Young: +1
Ted Thibodeau Jr.: +1
David I. Lehn: +1
Niklas Lindström: +1 (Not excluding RDF-star alignment?)
RESOLUTION: Recharter the JSON-LD WG to focus on YAML-LD and CBOR-LD
Benjamin Young: This resolution doesn't need to be exclusive, it just signals we want to recharter
Benjamin Young: We are still continuing the maintenance of JSON-LD core specs and other things
Benjamin Young: We'll likely not have another CG call before the end of the year, we'll get back to this in January