2024-05-08 Steering Committee Plenary Meeting Notes

Attendance

Steering Committee Members Attending and Participating 

• Daniel Bachenheimer (Accenture Global Solutions Limited)
• Steve McCown (Anonyome Labs)
• Andre Kudra (esatus)
• Wenjing Chu (Futurewei Technologies, Inc.)
• Drummond Reed (Gen Digital)
• Karla McKenna (GLEIF)
• Nicholas Racz (Key State Capital)
• John Jordan (Province of British Columbia)

Also Participating

• Judith Fleenor (ToIP Executive Director)
• Michelle Janata (LF PM)

Agenda 

• Recording
  • Link
• Presentation (Google Slides)

Call to Order
Judith Fleenor called the meeting to order at approx. 12:05 pm PT and announced the meeting would be recorded. There were no objections. 

Antitrust Policy Notice
Judith Fleenor reminded the Steering Committee of the Antitrust Policy.  

Agenda
Judith Fleenor introduced the agenda. No additional topics were added. 

Agenda Review (1 min)

Minutes Approval (1 min)

New Member Review (0 min)

Welcome Key State Capital (20 mins)

Election of Steering Committee Voting Members:
SC Members up for a renewal for new two & three year terms (5 min)

Trademark Registration Status (2 min)

Budget Reforecast (10 min)

Update on Spec Approval Process and Road Map to ISO (5 min)

EFWG - Bhutan NDI Case Study (2 min)

Spring Communications Planning (10 min)

Upcoming Meetings Reminders and Discussion Topics (2 min)

Findynet Presentation May 15th All Members Meeting (1 min)

Open Discussion

Approval of Minutes 

Judith Fleenor presented a resolution to approve the minutes from the previous Steering Committee meeting (Exhibit A) April 10, 2024, and solicited questions from the group. There were no questions or objections. 

Judith Fleenor indicated that consensus had been reached and the following resolution was approved: 

RESOLVED: That the minutes of the April 10, 2024, meeting of the Steering Committee, in the form attached hereto as Exhibit A, are hereby confirmed, approved, and adopted. 

New Member Review 

Steering Member: 

Key State Capital

Welcome Nicholas Racz to the ToIP Steering Committee

Nicholas Racz gives a brief Presentation on Key State Capital

Steering Committee Elections

Voting Members of the SC are normally elected for 3yr term, with ⅓ of the SC voting members up for election each year.

Terms for initial 2020 SC Members as stated in the ToIP Foundation Governance Policies:
First five >100 and first three <100 Steering Members: 3 year term
Second five >100 and second three <100 Steering Members: 2 year term
Final five >100 and Final 4 <100 Steering Members: 1 year term

Our procedures allowed for 25 voting members at founding, which we increased to 35 in 2022 when we change our membership structures.  Currently all Steering Level members therefore get a voting seat, but in the event we end-up with more than 35 Steering Level members we should have an election every year.

We did election in 2022. We seemed to have missed an official vote in 2023

Therefore, we need to vote some member organizations in for a 2 year term and some in for a three year term renewal of voting rights.

Companies that are up for voting status renewal are:

Small

Vote for new Term of:

Anonyome Labs (expires 2024) - 3yr

Large

Accenture (expired 2023) - 2yr

Certizen (expired 2023) - 2yr

Futurewei Technologies (expired 2023) - 2yr

Province of British Columbia (expired 2023) - 2yr

New Companies joined since last election:

Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) - 3yr

GS1 US - 2yr

RESOLVED: that Anonyome Labs, GLEIF, Key State Capital, MITRE, elected as voting members of the Steering Committee for a 3-year term.  And, Accenture, Certizen, Futurewei Technologies, GS1US, and Province of British Columbia be elected as voting member of the Steering Committee for a 2-year term.

Trademark Registration

Our Wordmark Registration has been completed in the USA.

To Maintain Trademark

Between the fifth and sixth years after the registration date File a Declaration of Use and/or Excusable Nonuse under section 8 

Between the ninth and 10th years after the registration date
File the first Declaration of Use and/or Excusable Nonuse and an Application for Renewal under sections 8 and 9

Every 10 years after that (between the 19th and 20th years, 29th and 30th years, etc.)
File subsequent Declarations of Use and/or Excusable Nonuse and an Application for Renewal under sections 8 and 9

https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/maintain/keeping-your-registration-alive#What-happens-next-and-timelines

Wordmark Registration has been completed in the USA

Logo with words has been registered in the USA

Logo with words has been registered in EU

To file in Canada would cost us about 2K and would take about 3 years due to their backlog – It was decided to not file in Canada.

To file in China would be about 1.5K and our words might not be distinctive enough to qualify.  Best option would be to try for Logo with words mark, like we did in EU. China’s turn around is about 1 year.

AI – Consensus is to move forward and file in China. Judith to pursue and find out how much it will cost to file in China and bring back to the Steering Committee with those costs. 

Budget Reforecast

Thanks to Key State Capital, we have 57K of revenue to add to our budget

We need to approve a budget reforecast to be able to spend and write a contract against those funds.

Those funds will be allocated as follows:

$5,130 to A & G, as required by LF’s 9%
$51,870 remainder to Leadership, to go toward a 4 month extension contract for a full time ED.

Additionally, a reduction in the 10K set aside for Trademark, reduced to 8K – $1000 of which was added to Leadership and $1000 of which to Travel. 

This is the primary budget proposal that Judith is putting forth to the Steering Committee for approval. Judith also presents the possibility of: 

In case we acquired one more Large Steering Committee Member before the budget reforecast needs to be submit at the end of May, Judith did a proposed budget reforecast for that event.

We would then receive $35K in additional revenue

Those funds will be allocated as follows:

$3150 to A & G, as required by LF’s 9%
$31,850 remainder

$28,200 to Leadership, to go toward a 6 month extension contract for a full time ED with an approx. 2% raise
$3650 added to travel for Fall conferences.

This is the primary budget proposal that Judith is putting forth to the Steering Committee for approval. 

Hearing no objections it is: 

RESOLVED: That the Budget Reforecast as presented, hereby confirmed, approved, and adopted.

Update on Spec Approval Process

At the last meeting we discussed what ToIP Specification Standards should be and what is our roadmap to ISO.

In speaking with Seth from LF, he agrees that using RFC2119 for ToIP Approved Specification as our standard makes sense because it is most widely used and understood. 

Then changing it to ISO editing format when ready for ISO is an easy switch. 

Seth Newberry sees no problem with the ToIP version available on our website being in RFC 2119 format, while the ISO version being available in their format.

Judith stated that the other thing we were concerned about was that the normative statements in the current KERI specifications were not defined well enough to be able to make a judgment call about what the conformance criteria was and agreed with Seth that the important thing is that the normative statements be written in such a way that conformance unit testing or a conformance specification can clearly be written from the specification.

While a specific conformation sections are not required in an ISO specification, it is best from an adoption standpoint that by the time it goes to ISO, that there be unit testing tools available, so the burden of writing them is not left to the implementers.

To reiterate, before a ToIP Approved specification would be moved on using the ISO PAS process, there would need to be substantial adoption of the specification in real world applications to point to.

EFWG - Bhutan NDI Case Study

Bhutan NDI Case Study link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EBlvGJZZ8rgeR9V27rl3Y-Uz8i-MKnKXS_aR5SwFqew/edit

The group is seeking a permanent link to the Case Study for an upcoming presentation. Judith is inquiring whether we can proceed with creating a permanent link for this purpose, which could then be used to generate a QR code for the presentation. Once created, we can officially approve it as a part of our working group's efforts. This would be noted as a working group-approved specification on our deliverables page. Is the Steering Committee in agreement with this approach? Are there any objections? No objections were raised during the discussion. If anyone has objections after reviewing the details within the next 7 days, please inform Judith.

Spring Conference Season

Europe travel  

SIDI - June 3nd - Berlin
Judith, Daniel and Drummond to attend

EIC - June 4-7th - Berlin
Panels:
The Emerging Trust Layer for the Internet: Using Minimum Viable Protocols to Achieve Maximum Interoperability - Friday, June 7th
Executive Directors Speak: Why We Need More Collaboration Friday, June 7th

Identity Week Europe - June 11-12th - Amsterdam
Judith on two panels

DICE, June 19-20th, pre-conference day 18th - Zurich

Use Europe to promote our specs, our vision, and do member recruitment.  

Upcoming SC Meeting Dates

May 15th - All Members Meeting

Findynet presentation on Trust Ecosystems
with Markus Hautala and Bo Harald

May 22nd - Steering Committee Discussion
- Presentation of Interactive Authentic Web Map
- LF new Umbrella Organization that we might want to consider being a part of.

June 26th - Steering Committee combined Plenary & Discussion Meeting.
(Possible second budget reforecast, if needed)

Communication Plan

April Blogs that have already posted: 

Keri Suite (KERI, CESR, ACDC) - BLOG Posted

Issuer Requirements Guide - BLOG Posted

ToIP Trust Registry Protocol Specification - BLOG Posted

ToIP Trust Spanning Protocol Specification - BLOG Posted

Blogs we expect to have posted in May: 

ToIP Technology Architecture Specification- BLOG expected post IIW

HXWG/IPTF - Wallet Survey Results - BLOG expected May

These Blogs will be done when said company is ready: 

GLEIF Welcome BLOG when they desire

Key State Capital BLOG when they desire

TSP comparison to Other Protocols series

Self-Certifying Identifier (SCID) Specification and Security Guide?

LinkedIn Images for upcoming conference presenters

Website Updates

Another task we'd like to accomplish before the EIC is updating our webpage. The Model page needs to be updated with our new graphic and new wording associated with that. Then our technology specification page needs to be updated but cannot be done until the technology specification is done. Judith asks Drummond if she can assign him to work on that section. Drummond suggests that Judith ask John Phillips and the Governance Architecture task force to agree to sign up and support helping with the Model page. It was agreed for Judith to work with John Phillips on the Model page and Drummond to work on the wording details. 

The Model Page - https://trustoverip.org/toip-model/

New Graphic, new wording

Our Work

Technology Arch Specification page - https://trustoverip.org/our-work/technical-architecture/

Evolution of the Stack page - https://trustoverip.org/our-work/evolution-of-the-toip-stack/

Evolutions of the Stack.pdf - https://trustoverip.org/permalink/Evolution-of-the-ToIP-Stack-V1.0-2022-11-14.pdf

Adjournment 

At approximately 1:16pm PT, Judith Fleenor adjourned the meeting.