Moving to OWF – Working doc

Todo

• Write GH Discussion announcement
• Ask for a slot during Aries WG
• Write Discord/mailing list message
• Post announcement to Discord
  • #aries
  • #aries-framework-javascript
  • #bifold
• Post message to mailing list -> aries@lists.hyperledger.org
• Send message to Sebastian and Torsten to update them on the state of things.

Communication

GH Discussion Post

https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-framework-javascript/discussions/1586

Hi Community!

The recent discussions in the Aries Working Group and the .NET framework's move to the Open Wallet Foundation (OWF) have prompted us, the active maintainers of Aries Framework JavaScript (AFJ), to consider the framework's future, and drove us to propose to to move the framework to OWF. Here's why.

AFJ's mission has always been to make SSI (Self-Sovereign Identity) accessible to anyone interested in adopting the technology. As decentralized identity technologies are being adopted by different governments and organizations, various standards are being used. We believe that AFJ is most valuable as a generic SSI framework that supports a wide range of standards. Therefore, we have expanded AFJ's capabilities by adding support for other non-Aries standards, such as OpenID4VC and JSON-LD, over the past year.

However, we think that AFJ has a "branding problem." Due to its name and association with other Hyperledger projects, such as Indy, AnonCreds, and Fabric, most people assume that the framework is limited to the Hyperledger ecosystem. This makes it difficult for the framework to be adopted in jurisdictions that rely on non-Aries standards and also limit its appeal to new contributors. We believe that moving the framework to OWF will better communicate its purpose, has the potential to attract a wider audience, increase contributors, and overall adoption of AFJ.

We understand that AFJ has many stakeholders who require interoperability with AFJ based on the Aries Interop Profiles (such as ACA-Py). Therefore, we want to emphasize that we will continue to work closely with the Aries community and support the standards on which Aries is based (AnonCreds, DIDComm, etc.).

This is only a proposal. As maintainers, we value the views and opinions of the community and will take any objections seriously. If no formal objections are raised within the next 14 days, we will initiate the process of moving AFJ to OWF.

To make a formal objection, please reply to this post, clearly stating that you object and why.

Kind regards,

Ariel, Jakub, Berend, Timo, Karim

Communication channel announcement

Hi everyone,

After various discussions and considerations, we, the active maintainers of Aries Framework JavaScript (AFJ), are proposing to move AFJ to the Open Wallet Foundation (OWF). Of course, we value the opinions and views of the community and would therefore like to invite you to participate in the discussion.

The formal proposal can be found here: https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-framework-javascript/discussions/1586

If you have any objections, thoughts, or other remarks, please go ahead and put them in the comment section of the GitHub discussion stated above. This way, everything is kept in one place, making it easy for anyone to read up on the topic.

Lastly, we will discuss this matter during the upcoming Aries Working Group call on September the 27th (7:00 AM PDT/4:00 PM CEST) as well as during the upcoming Aries Framework JavaScript Working Group call on September the 28th (6:00 AM PDT/3:00 PM CEST). We hope to see you there!

Kind regards,

Team AFJ

Objections

Use this section to gather any formal objections.