Lifecycle should have a balanced discussion of ownership

[mmccool]

See related discussion here: w3c/wot-security#192
Essentially, the discussion of ownership seems out of balance with other issues. The text should be updated to give things a more balanced weighing. Oliver Pfaff has volunteered to create a PR to try to address this (will assign him to this issue once github lets me...)

[OliverPfaff]

Should be possible to assign me now...

[OliverPfaff]

(Intentionally this is no PR; we are not yet there as the following text tries to say)

The following tries to say: ‘ownership’ will be a potentially costly consideration. Options are: abstain (not mention at least not elaborate on ownership) or accept its price-tag

First off, “ownership” relates to legal concepts (laws, regulations), laws and mindsets/perceptions behind them differ across the globe (the following text has a German background)

Physical objects (this includes: [physical] thing, system) always have an owner. The owner may be an individual or a legal entity (e.g. corporation, club, society…). Whether/how ownership is enforced depends on the perceived value (plastic pen…land/buildings) as well as availability (air…gold) of the object

For virtual/digital objects things depend: ownership is applicable for items such as text, pictures, music…, ownership is not applicable to data which is collected from [physical] thing, system (and that is not personally identifiable)

In cases where ownership is at least tracked or even enforced, 3rd parties besides the possessor party and owner party enter the game e.g.

• Public registries/notaries in case of land or buildings
• Corporations in case of (high-value) equipment items such as cars (note: manufacturers may have an interest in tracking ownership without being able to become an enforcement actor – CRM)

In my opinion: talking about “ownership” without considering its tracking/enforcement (along/during the thing/system lifecycle) does not help much. Considering tracking/enforcement of ownership requires to establish a mutually accepted idea of 3rd party actors besides the possessor party and owner party. Manufacturers of (physical) things and systems may have strong opinions about whether they can envision themselves in such roles.

[mlagally]

Arch call on 10.12:
Unclear what problem we are trying to solve by including ownership into the lifecycle?

Is this just about transferring access rights and corresponding keys?