2023-09-05 Aries Cloud Agent - Python Users Group Community Meeting

Summary:

Topics:

• Release 0.10.1 Published
• AATH Issue – ACA-Py Tests Failing since 2023.09.01
• DID Peer discussion – Across Aries and ACA-Py-specific
• PRs and Issues - status update
• Open Discussion

Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/98856745538?pwd=VkJROWRxeW43d3hOdnJLemwrS0JKUT09

Call Time: 8:00 Pacific / 17:00 Central Europe

Recordings From the Call:  

Welcome, Introductions and Announcements

• Internet Identity Workshop coming up October 10-12
• Hyperledger Member Summit October 23 in San Francisco and Tokyo
• Aries Working Group call – Wednesday (7:00 Pacific / 16:00 Central Europe) with a NEW Zoom link!!!

Attendees

• Stephen Curran (BC Gov/Cloud Compass Computing Inc.) <swcurran@cloudcompass.ca>
• Daniel Bluhm (Indicio PBC) <daniel@indicio.tech>
• jason sherman (BC Gov / Quartech) <jason@usingtechnolo.gy>
• Warren Gallagher (AffinitiQuest) <warren@affinitiquest.io>

Announcements

• ACA-Py documentation: https://aca-py.org

Agenda

• Release 0.10.1 Published
• AATH Test Failing – last passed 2023.08.29, first failed 2023.09.01
  • Poetry PR - commit
  • Flake8 to Ruff PR - commit
• DID Peer Progress and Discussion
  • Aries: Introduction of did:peer:4 – a new numalgo
    • Relevant issue: https://github.com/decentralized-identity/peer-did-method-spec/issues/58
    • Outline: https://hackmd.io/@dbluhm/did-peer-4
    • Reference implementation: https://github.com/dbluhm/did-peer-4
  • Aries: Introduction of new RFC "rotate-did" for DIDComm Messaging DIDs
    • https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-rfcs/pull/794
  • Wrapping up the work to move from unqualified to qualified DIDs
• Update: Hyperledger AnonCreds Rust in ACA-Py
  • Status of AnonCreds RS – has merged in the latest CL Signatures.
    • No release has been done. Need to get that done ASAP - Andrew or Timo?
    • Following that, Daniel will get main merged into the AnonCreds RS branch in ACA-Py.
• PRs and Issues
  • Old ones (suggested for discussion by Daniel Bluhm): 
    • https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-cloudagent-python/issues/1042 - https message type prefix
    • https://github.com/hyperledger/aries-cloudagent-python/issues/1044 - updated media types
    • Yes!  Need to decide exactly the behaviour to change.
      • Document what is there today.
      • Decide what will be the new behaviour – simply drop the old style or add a flag that defaults but allows the old style?  Hopefully no new flag...
      • The existing flag should continue to be accepted, I think, although we could drop it as well.
  • What would LTS (Long Term Support) support mean for ACA-Py?
    • Commitment from an organization to provide the support
      • Keep the infrastructure to keep running – e.g. GHA for now – but monitor changes in that.
    • Time frame for the LTS – 3 years, 5 years?
      • Plan for the "next LTS"
    • Get to a 1.0 version?  E.g. AIP 2.0?  Getting close... 
      • Please ACK – needs to be implemented.
    • Pick an LTS OS to run on
      • Target the version of Python associated with the OS and other dependencies
        • All python releases get 5 years of security updates (starting from release date)
        • Python 3.9 ends October 5, 2025
    • Monitor OS and dependencies and update them on a branch
    • Cherry pick ACA-Py PRs suitable for LTS
      • CI/CD Infrastructure changes – maintain them for the LTS 
      • Security fixes - Yes
      • New features – No
    • Marketing/Guidance – the positioning of LTS versions and the ongoing evolution of the codebase
    • Interoperability – maintenance of the test harness – e.g. adding a Test Agent for the LTS branch ongoing execution
      • AATH – need feature to NOT run tests when the Test Agent has not changed
    • Migration – migration to the next LTS – managing that, perhaps beyond what we do in ACA-Py today
    • Impacts on Community Coordinate Updates
      • Should we, for example, support step 1 of CCUs by adding handling receipt of old and new?
• Open Discussion

Upcoming Meeting Topics:

• Discussion Topics:
  
  • Update on ACA-Py Container Scanning
  • Multi-architecture containers
    • Issue with BBS+ package – doesn't support ARM containers – need an update to their CI
    • Solution: A third container published that includes BBS+ package, but is single architecture
    • Others are Askar

Future Topics

Action items