Add alsoKnownAs property to AS vocabulary

[msporny]

Please Indicate One:

• Editorial
• Question
• Feedback
• Blocking Issue
• Non-Blocking Issue

Please Describe the Issue:

The W3C DID WG would like to include the alsoKnownAs property to its JSON-LD Context and has heard that alsoKnownAs is being actively used in Mastodon for the same purpose as what the DID WG would like to use it for. The issue is that the term has not been registered in the AS Vocabulary. The W3C DID WG PR that is concerned with this issue is here:

w3c/did-core#355

We are currently trying to determine if we should mint our own alsoKnownAs or build on top of AS 2.0. There is a strong desire to build on top of AS 2.0.

The ask would be to add the term to the AS 2.0 vocabulary. We are specifically NOT asking for any changes to the ActivityStreams JSON-LD Context file (nothing disruptive).

If the Vocabulary isn't updated/pushed out as a new TR, we're fine with that as long as there is an ED available via the Web that lists the term (and a future iteration includes the term in the vocabulary).

How can we resolve this issue within a few weeks/months? What's the path forward?

[rhiaro]

I think the most feasible path forward for this is to:

1. define the term (aka write human readable text about what it is) in the DID Core spec;
2. get consensus from the ActivityPub developer community (in particular, Mastodon developers who already use the term in a live implementation) (I propose doing this by starting a thread on the socialhub forum and then holding a SocialCG meeting about it for the formal proposal);
3. then register it as an extension to ActivityStreams 2.0, which means add it to the AS2 namespace listing and JSON-LD context.

If it turns out that a lot of the AP community are interested in pushing this forward, we could move the definition from the DID Core spec to the ED of the ActivityStreams Vocab spec, but a timeline on that seems longer and getting it into a new version of the REC even longer still as I think we'd need a new WG for that and nothing like that is on the horizon for SocialCG as far as I know.

[msporny]

I think the most feasible path forward for this is to:

Awesome, thanks for the concrete suggestion @rhiaro -- we'll pass this plan by the W3C DID WG on an upcoming call.

[aschrijver]

Should this be documented as a Fediverse Enhancement Proposal even though it is already merged?

Additionally, how are changes to the JSON-LD versioned, and relating to the W3C spec? I see people reading the spec and searching for the .jsonld to use in their project, probably expecting to find a 2.0 compliant thing. Is this now retro-actively part of it?