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JSON-LD WG/CG

Minutes for 2026-01-15

Present
Benjamin Young, Ivan Herman, Anatoly Scherbakov, Niklas Lindström, Wesley Smith, Ted Thibodeau Jr., David I. Lehn, Pierre-Antoine Champin, Victor Lu
Chair(s)
Benjamin Young, Victor Lu
Scribe(s)
Pierre-Antoine Champin, Benjamin Young
Agenda
https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/39920eba-0c9e-431a-a61d-347c7398ac98/
Topics
  1. Introductions and Announcements
  2. New Group Overview
  3. Call Schedule
  4. Anything Else?
Pierre-Antoine Champin is scribing.

Topic: Introductions and Announcements

Benjamin Young: This is the JSON-LD Working Group and Community Group call
... we will use the January calls to get people from various community to care about the Working Group and hopefully join
Ivan Herman: We have a new charter that requires everybody to rejoin the group (because of new deliverable)
... that's why we noticed a number of members leaving the group and re-joining
... please everybody be sure to re-join
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Please everyone check the page above and contact the AC rep if it says "need to re-join"
Benjamin Young: Welcome VictorLu as a new co-chair

Topic: New Group Overview

Benjamin Young: Let's go over the charter and what we are supposed to do
... we touched on the re-joining already; this is due to the new IPR agreement.
... We also need to vote on including the CG reports as FPWD.
Benjamin Young is scribing.
Pierre-Antoine Champin: We need to move the specs into W3C space
... before we can do the FPWD vote
... but since the documents seem ready, that should be quick
Benjamin Young: You would take an action to move the document into w3c repos
Pierre-Antoine Champin: The main thing we need are editors who are participants in the WG
... which may not be the case with all of them
... and it can be a chair appointed person to manage the WG deliverables
Benjamin Young: I believe that we have editors in the WG for YAML-LD (anatoly-scherbakov) and CBOR-LD (wes-smith)
... do you agree to be editors?
Wesley Smith: I agree and consent, but note that I'm not (yet) listed as a participant
Benjamin Young: Ok, you need to click on join and an AC rep (me) will approve
Anatoly Scherbakov: I have alteady joined
Ted Thibodeau Jr.: Note that some organizations need to rejoin
Benjamin Young: It is not urgent but it does need to happen
Ted Thibodeau Jr.: If I click on join, I see a link for my AC-rep to join, but they are not notified
Pierre-Antoine Champin: I will signal this issue to our admins
Benjamin Young: We have editors for YAML-LD and CBOR-LD
... let's talk about the JSON-LD specs; those are the one we have the greatest need for
Gregg Kellogg (v1.0 and v1.1)
Pierre-Antoine Champin (LIRIS - Université de Lyon) (v1.1)
Dave Longley (Digital Bazaar) (v1.1)
Pierre-Antoine Champin: They are the same for API and Framing
Pierre-Antoine Champin: There's not rule and I am acting as co-editor in other groups
... but my time is lacking
Benjamin Young: Dave Longley is not here, I assume he may not be able to continue
Pierre-Antoine Champin: I can continue, but I can't be lead editor
Benjamin Young: We will need to find lead editors for the 3 JSON-LD specs
... we can buy some time by starting to focus on YAML-LD and CBOR-LD
Niklas Lindström: I'll talk to my boss and try get some time for working as editor on the JSON-LD specs
Benjamin Young: I'll try to get people interested
... is everyone else present interested in helping with one of these specs?
Anatoly Scherbakov: What is the scope of the work?
Benjamin Young: With Gregg gone, we need someone to shepherd the PRs and lead the work on the specs
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Gregg was doing an incredible job as lead editor on these specs
... he was really leading the spec in ways the other editors didn't or couldn't
... we don't need someone that stellar or prominent
... having a lead is still helpful, but you don't have to be a full replacement for Gregg
David I. Lehn: Like other people, I don't know how much time I can dedicate to this
... I can't remember the last time I read the spec in whole; I assume you need to have the whole spec in your head
Benjamin Young: It is more about PR curation than creation
... the chairs will work with the editor to pick what to discuss and when
David I. Lehn: The people on this call are those who join all the time, so I assume it will have to be someone present on the call
Benjamin Young: The few people I can imagine are people who have done JSON-LD implementations
... not all of them are on the call
... the thing that motivates anyone to work on a spec is when they need the spec to say something
Niklas Lindström: Yes, specifically, we need RDF 1.2 annotations in JSON-LD
... I had a look at Gregg's JSON-LD-star spec and test suite
... Similarly, there are some issues that will give us headaches if we can't fix them
Benjamin Young: There are also people interested in JSON-LD streaming
... while this is a separate topic, we could get some editorial help from them

Topic: Call Schedule

Benjamin Young: I have setup the recurring call for the next 2 years
... we will combine WG and CG calls in January, hopefully bringing more CG people in the next two meetings (LWS, VC, Activity Streams)
... maybe also the people behind JellyRDF (similarity to CBOR-LD)
... hopefully picking their interest to participate
... starting in Frebruary, we will have WG calls; this leaves the CG in limbo space
Ivan Herman: Let's be careful with bringing CG's people wishlist; we have a lot on our plate already
Benjamin Young: Agreed, but my primary interest is to make sure people keep interested in the technology, because there are only 9 of us on this call
... we need folks to come
Ivan Herman: Yes, but we need them to come to do what's in the charter
... there are not that many things for JSON-LD 1.2, but they need to be done
... then JSON-LD 1.2 is supposed to align with RDF 1.2, that's already more than we can chew
Benjamin Young: I hear you, let's not create distraction but try to build bridges
Ivan Herman: We can also reach out to people privately, be salespersons
Benjamin Young: Some RDF databases have Property Graph features, they could benefit from JSON-LD being aligned with RDF 1.2
Ivan Herman: Yes, but there are other things we need to do first
... e.g. security problems around context files
Anatoly Scherbakov: +1
Benjamin Young: Is everyone ok with this call time for the near future?
Pierre-Antoine Champin: +1
Niklas Lindström: +1
Ivan Herman: +1
Benjamin Young: The CG (which I also chair) will not have calls beyond the upcoming January calls, unless the need is expressed
... and if it does, we will not have it conflict with this slot
Anatoly Scherbakov: We have a number of issues, some PRs
... what should people having some free time to help with those so?
... pick a random issue? or do we have a concept of milestone?
Benjamin Young: Gregg and I set up a github project, not sure how up-to-date it is
... changes should be tagged based on what kind of states they are
... my preference would be to start by cleaning PRs waiting to be merged (confirm they have tests)
... then we can look at issues: we discuss it, somebody volunteers to write a PR
... I hope we can keep the 1.2 scope to a lot that's already in there or has pending PRs
Ivan Herman: +1 To bigbluehat about emptying the PR backlog
Pierre-Antoine Champin: +1
Niklas Lindström: +1
Anatoly Scherbakov: +1
Ivan Herman: I believe that JSON-LD 1.2 is still to be publsihed as FPWD
Benjamin Young: +1 To getting "everything" to FPWD asap
... they are obviously in good enough shape for that
... this would help bring people on board
Pierre-Antoine Champin: +1 To that with one caveat
... a lot of the changes are using "candidate amendment" policy
... because we were planning to make the change in place, but now we're not doing that
... so we need to remove that machinery
... it's some work...but maybe AI could help with that
Ivan Herman: But it's rewarding work, because it removes the mess in there
Benjamin Young: That amounts to removing the <ins> and <del> tags right?
Pierre-Antoine Champin: Yes, as well as the notes describing the changes
Benjamin Young: AI would probably help with that; the PRs will affect a lot of lines
... but nothing controversial, the text is already there
... I would like to have our FPWDs published in February
... is anyone interested in take action to clean up some HTML?
David I. Lehn: Where we managing actions on a github repository?
Benjamin Young: Point taken
... I'll create an issue
Anatoly Scherbakov: I can try removing the <ins> and <del> markups; you can tag me there

Topic: Anything Else?

Benjamin Young: Thanks everybody; we'll meet next week.
... please use the mailing list to let us know what you would like to see discussed