Table of Contents
The Decentralized Identity Foundation organization (also known as DIF) was formed as a Joint Development Foundation (which became part of the Linux Foundation at the end of 2018) project in 2017 and has grown to be a major venue for IPR-protected co-development among large and small industry players. It has historically focused on the development of both working open-source code and pre-standard specifications for decentralized identity, but it is starting to branch out into non-technical forms of cooperation for the purposes of market-building and to promote all open decentralized identity technology, whether created in DIF or elsewhere.
Currently, DIF has a diverse, international membership, including over 270 member companies, universities, and government agencies that are collaboratively developing the broader space of decentralized identities.
There are 9 technical working groups, 3 business interest groups, and 4 different open groups to bring together members with shared interests, common goals, and a desire to collaborate.
Vision
DIF wants to enable a world where decentralized identity solutions allow entities to gain control over their identities and allow trusted interactions.
Mission
The Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) exists to advance the interests of the decentralized identity community, including performing research and development to advance “pre-competitive” technical foundations towards established interoperable, global standards. DIF views this work as a foundational step towards secure, efficient, empowered and democratic interactions online. To that end, DIF aims to include contributions from a diversity of viewpoints and foster an environment of empathy and cooperation, and make its work freely available to the public as Open Source resources.
Internal Org Structure
As defined in the DIF Charter and Governance - Operating Addendum, DIF is governed by the elected Steering Committee (SC). The SC is made up of 10 elected members and the representatives of the Technical Steering Committee. The election takes place in Q1-2 of each year. Nominees are required to be members of DIF at the time of the annual elections, however, only Associate member organizations are qualified to vote.
The SC is the legal decision-maker in DIF: it created the Technical Steering Commitee (TSC) to delegate decision-making authority on operational technical matters to the TSC. The TSC is made up of the current (technical) Working Group chairs, with every WG sending at least one chair to participate. On voting matters, there is one vote per WG, not per person. The TSC chair is elected by the WG chairs at the TSC and not general DIF membership.
The Executive Director is the primary official representative of the foundation. The ED is selected by the SC.
The people responsible for DIF Operations and Communications report to the Executive Director or directly to the SC.
The Operating Addendum governing the structure of the SC and TSC can be found here.
The Steering Committee election process is detailed here: SC election
Funding
DIF is a US-registered 501(c)(6) membership organization. DIF’s funding originates only from the membership fees paid by Associate members. DIF does not accept external donations and does not sell commercial products or advertisements of any kind.
As of July 2021, DIF is delighted to administer various grants for specific items of work that contribute value to the open-source decentralized identity space. This funding either comes from DIF directly, or is sponsored by a member organization and awarded and administered by DIF.
Sounds great! How can I join?
Membership applications can be submitted via our website here or by emailing [email protected]. Read our Membership section for more detailed information about becoming a member of DIF and what options are available.
Who can be a member of DIF?
Anyone with a legal presence can join DIF.
DIF has several different membership types, some of which are free and some which incur fees:
The DIF Participation Matrix gives a comprehensive overview of the differences between the various types of DIF membership. Paid associate membership comes with a number of exclusive extras, including a vote in Steering Committee elections, representation on the DIF website, and the ability to list opportunities on our DIF jobs board.
Associate membership:
The highest tier of membership level is available for companies of all sizes. The Associate membership is a paid membership and the fees are dynamically scaled based on total employee numbers. The fee scale can be found here.
Contributor membership:
This is DIF’s free membership tier designed for companies. This membership is available for companies with less than 1000 employees. Contributors do not participate in the election and are not eligible to submit technical news to the newsletter.
Individual freelancers (Feedback Agreement):
Designed for individual contributors to DIF Working Groups, free of charge. The contributions are provided on an individual basis, not as a representative of an organization or company (you must not be in full-time employment at an organization). Regardless of freelance status, check with the legal department of your clients to make sure this agreement would be actionable and is not in breach of your existing contracts.
FYI: this option CANNOT be used if you are a full-time employee or executive officer of an entity, regardless of for-profit/non-profit status.
Liaison (Non-profit/Govt. Agency:
This is DIF’s partnership framework tier that was created for DIF to align interests and establish partnerships with other organizations that are not-for-profit.
Non-profit organizations with complicated ownership structures and government agencies should review the Liaison agreement and contact [email protected] for further details.
Subsidiary rule: What if only a subsidiary of a larger corporation is interested in membership?
Corporations are often a group of companies tied together under a common brand and interlinked product portfolios, even though the local decision power and focus of these entities might differ. Geographical subsidiaries and non-profit “wings” closely affiliated with for-profit parent enterprises are considered, for DIF membership purposes, “subsidiaries” of these larger enterprises.
Length of Membership
The term of the membership agreement is 1 year from the date this agreement is countersigned by the Project. Upon the expiration of any term, this Project Charter will automatically renew for successive 1 year periods unless a party provides the other party with notice of its intent not to renew this Project Charter at least 30 days prior to the expiration of the then-current term. As always, if you have any questions regarding invoicing, term limits, and renewals, please reach out to us at [email protected]!
Invoices for paying members
As part of the Linux Foundation, DIF relies on its financial administration infrastructure. The invoice is managed and issued by Linux Foundation accounting from an @linuxfoundation.org email address. DIF membership fees are billed annually. \
The ongoing work that DIF facilitates takes place across a variety of (digital) venues.
Please note that the DIF code of conduct applies to all of these contexts, to ensure that we create an open, honest and kind environment for all.
GitHub
GitHub is DIF’s primary place of collaboration and the main archive of the work produced at DIF by a variety of Working Groups (WG). Many Working Groups manage a number of repositories for individual projects and work items, as well as for general note-keeping, agenda-setting for group calls, charters, and other governance documentation. All of the documentation for DIF as an organization is also freely available on GitHub here.
To get involved with any of this work please join DIF as a member and sign the applicable WG charter (s). Once that’s done, please reach out to [email protected] or on Slack with your associated GitHub handles to be added to the various repositories.
DIF Blog
DIF maintains a regular blog (link), hosted on the DIF website, as well as Medium.com. Here we report exciting developments, news and project successes both at DIF and from the wider decentralized identity community. Most of the content is written by DIF members and WG chairs, often to explain specific details of a work item or working group, or as a high-level overview of some of the core concepts and technologies underpinning our work. We highly recommend you take a look through the archive here LINK.
YouTube
DIF also runs a YouTube channel, which is particularly suited to video-explainers of decentralized identity technology, or hosting webinars and virtual events, whether live or pre-recorded. If you have any content you would like to upload, present as a webinar or want to produce with us, please reach out to us directly.
Code Donations
DIF accepts and encourages members to work on community-owned work instead of in-house open-source projects. For this reason, DIF developed a straightforward method for donation of work to the organization, which DIF will then provide to the public under an open-source license for use, further development, testing, forking etc. DIF does not accept financial or material donations of any kind.
Mailing list
Every DIF group (Technical or Open) has a respective mailing list. Everyone can subscribe to any mailing list, however, the contribution is limited, in the case of the Technical WG mailing list, to members who signed the WG charter. Updates related to the work of the group, as well as scheduling and agenda of regular calls can be shared through this channel. We encourage member representatives to use their corporate email addresses. Please whitelist @identity.foundation email addresses to make sure they don’t land in your spam filter. We are not interested in selling your data to third parties or sending you spam.
Newsletter
DIF also produces a monthly newsletter: This includes status updates on the work across DIF groups, relevant industry news, upcoming events and job opportunities at DIF members. This is a great way to get an overview of all the moving parts at DIF. The newsletter archive of past issues can be found here, and you can subscribe to the newsletter directly on the DIF homepage here. If you have any exciting announcements or tips, you can submit them for inclusion using this form.
Slack
DIF also hosts a Slack workspace to host conversations around topics or for members of a specific group. Please note that significant contributions to group work should be kept on GitHub and for the group Zoom calls. Please register for the DIF Slack using your corporate email address and real name.** Note**: as this is an unpaid Slack space, message history is limited: currently the channels have approx 4-5 weeks of history. Please save any important info, files, links etc or move the conversation to an email chain if it will be needed for reference later.
DIF maintains a Twitter presence with the handle @decentralizedID account to provide frequent updates on industry news, publications, work progress at DIF, and events.
Grants
Documentation on the nature of DIF Grants can be found on GitHub here, which includes the form for applying. Considerations for what makes a compelling application is discussed in the DIF Blog article announcing the Grant scheme.
For an example of the kind of work that can be funded by a grant from DIF, read about our first awardee, a JWS Test Suite, on the DIF Blog here.
To safeguard the integrity of DIF’s work, and foster a transparent, open-source community where members can collaborate freely, there are a variety of considerations around ownership and sharing of content, code and ideas.
By contributing to any discussion, code, issues, pull requests, or other forms of contribution to all DIF mediums where discussion, development, and collaboration on its contents are taking place, your contributions are bound by DIF's standard license and attribution selections, as detailed below:
[any questions regarding DIF’s licenses should be first discussed with the member company’s legal counsel.]
DIF uses the same licensing framework for all of its Technical Working Groups.
In case you have any questions about the meaning of these policies, please reach out to your attorney or legal department at your organization. The DIF team is unable to provide legal advice when joining. In case your legal representation has a specific question, we are able to facilitate an individual meeting between the legal advisors of DIF and the (potential) member.
Patent Licensing: W3C model
DIF is committed to open-source, community-based work. This is DIF’s Licensing Commitment: For materials other than source code developed by the Working Group, each Working Group Participant agrees to make available any of its Essential Claims, as defined in the W3C Patent Policy, under the W3C RF licensing requirements Section, in Approved Deliverables adopted by that Working Group as if that Approved Deliverable was a W3C Recommendation. Source code developed by the Working Group is further subject to the license as set forth in the individual Working Group charter.
Source Code
Source code contributions are subject to the Developer Certificate of Origin version 1.1, available at http://developercertificate.org , and the following license: Apache 2, available at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html
Copyright Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Participating in a Working Group (WG), Special Interest Group (SIG), or Open Group (OG)
DIF hosts two distinctive types of groups, to which different legal agreements apply.
Working groups (shortened to 'WG') are the core of DIF’s work. These are the groups collaborating on specifications and standards to extend the capabilities of Decentralized Identities. To join these groups one must have a legal agreement with DIF (membership) and must have signed the IPR waiver (individual WG charter) before contributing. It is highly important that all parties follow these rules as the value of a freely usable, IPR-claim-free specification is the fundamental basis for open standardization. In case of doubt, please contact the WG chair directly before contributing.
The following are the Working Groups at DIF:
- Identifiers & Discovery
- DID Authentication
- Claims & Credentials
- DID Communication
- Sidetree
- Secure Data Storage
- KERI
- Wallet Security
- Applied Crypto Working Group
Open Groups & Special Interest Groups
Open Groups & Special Interest Groups are meeting series that are not focused directly on technical specification work. Most of these groups are established as a cooperative space to align on business verticals and encourage ideation, and most content can be freely presented or discussed here. Please be aware of any restrictions you may have in your contract with your employer or customers, NDAs etc.
Special Interest Groups (SIGs) currently at DIF include:
Open Groups currently at DIF include:
As always, we are striving to be clear, precise and accessible in our documentation. Have questions or suggestions for us? Please feel free to create a pull request with your feedback, or reach out to DIF directly.
Copyright © |2021| |DECENTRALIZED IDENTITY FOUNDATION|