| This response is full of mostly terrible, uninformed takes. > No practical interoperability. As Microsoft & Google expressed, the DID “Core” spec has not demonstrated any degree of practical interoperability, instead delegating that to a registry of 50+ “methods”, none of which themselves have interoperable implementations. While there are 50+ DID methods, they're all trivially made accessible via a uniform API [1]. DID method specs and implementations are service-specific drivers, which are meant to plug into a generic resolver and registrar service endpoint which anyone can run. The point of the DID W3C spec is to provide a standard for creating individual DID methods. It is not, and was never about, creating a uniform API for using them. > Encourages divergence rather than convergence. The DID architectural approach appears to encourage divergence rather than convergence & interoperability. Again, the author misses the point. DID methods are service-specific drivers; providing a uniform API is the responsibility of the layer above them. The "divergence rather than convergence" dichotomy here is absurd -- it's like saying that the proliferation of link-layer protocols encourages divergence rather than convergence in networking protocols, while completely ignoring that IP exists and is meant to provide a uniform narrow-waist protocol for using them. Obviously, link-layer protocols don't implement IP, nor are they expected to. Similarly, DID methods are not expected to implement the higher-level universal resolver and registrar protocols. > Centralized methods allowed, in contradiction to WG & spec goals & name. This I think is the only fair point in this email. Why the fuck is did:ccp considered a good-faith DID method?! It's a DID method for Baidu Cloud. > Proof-of-work methods (e.g. blockchains) are harmful for sustainability (s12y). Also as noted by Google, the registry contains methods which rely upon proof-of-work which is wasteful. “Successful” proof-of-work systems waste a staggering amount of electricity world-wide (e.g. Bitcoin consumes more energy than most countries. The amount of electricity PoW blockchains spend is orthogonal to the worthiness of the DID spec. That PoW spends a "staggering amount" of electricity is not a consequence of PoW blockchains' designs; it's a consequence of the governments of the world permitting it to happen. The absolute energy use is not an intrinsic requirement for these systems -- PoW blockchains would work just the same if the world's budget for mining was only 1 KW. I expected better from the W3C. (Disclaimer: I am the author of one of the DID method specs). [1] https://github.com/decentralized-identity/universal-resolver |