[OpenID board] Connect WG

Chris Messina chris.messina at gmail.com
Sat Jun 5 17:47:26 UTC 2010


On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 7:35 AM, Dick Hardt <dick.hardt at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> OAuth 2.0 does NOT solve the problems that OpenID was trying to solve. It
> is NOT a distributed identity system. If you can make discovery work for
> OAuth, then you can make it work for OpenID. OAuth implementations today do
> NOT have discovery.
>

Perhaps standards groups like the OpenID Foundation operate in a slightly
different marketplace-twilight zone, but I'm curious how we define our
customers — and how that definition should or shouldn't affect the work that
gets done.

For example, Luke — representing Facebook — is saying that there's not been
sufficient adoption of OpenID over the past several years, and for the use
cases that I've cared most about, I would agree with that assessment. It is
not the case that OpenID hasn't been adopted — but that OpenID simply isn't
the only game in town anymore, and that the market demand in the consumer
space was unearthed and capitalized on by the likes of Facebook and Twitter,
and NOT the many other OpenID providers.

Facebook is saying that they want to work through the OpenID Foundation to
help develop a technology solution that is more like what the market has
already adopted — but that adds in discovery to aid in decentralizing
identity, at least in a very primitive way (hence the Connect proposal).

Dick, you seem to be saying that OAuth is not a distributed identity system,
but that if discovery were defined for it (along with auto-registration of
clients), then it would be useful as a distributed identity technology. Am I
getting that right?

I think the divide here comes down to whether the OIDF should be focused on
what the market demands and is willing to adopt *today*, or instead on the
set of technologies that may enable distributed identity solutions
*tomorrow*.

My fear — which has been consistent — is that if we don't respond to the
market's desires today (represented by Facebook, Yahoo, and other's
comments) then we won't be part of the conversation when potential adopters
are looking for better solutions tomorrow.

So, if we spin out the Connect proposal — or cause it so much friction that
it can't effectively proceed here — then by the time the ill-named v.Next
proposal is completed (with all of the "necessary" use cases addressed), the
world may have moved on, and the Foundation proven irrelevant. I don't see
it as an all-or-nothing situation, but as others have said, there will be an
identity piece baked into OAuth sooner than later, and if that  work doesn't
happen within the OIDF, we're going to be pitching a product that no one has
really said that they want, or are currently signing up to implement, based
on the lack of clarity in the description of v.Next today, whereas there are
already working prototypes of the Connect proposal in the wild.

There needs to be a bridge between OpenID 2.0 — which is a perfectly fine
solution for many use cases today — and the next iterations of OpenID 2.x
and beyond.

Chris


> -- Dick
>
> On 2010-06-04, at 11:14 PM, Luke Shepard wrote:
>
> > We have complained for years in the OpenID community that we don't see
> enough adoption. That we don't have a great mobile story. That the spec is
> too complicated. That relying parties can't get the attributes they want.
> The fact is that most of the major identity providers have adopted or are
> planning to adopt OAuth 2.0 largely because it solves many of those
> problems.
> >
> > I believe in OpenID. I believe in the concept of a decentralized
> identity. I think the OpenID Foundation, by bringing together myriad
> companies and individuals, is in a unique position to really help bring
> cohesive, standardized technology - but only if it responds to the realities
> of the marketplace.
> >
> > My main goal is to see the next generation of identity technology built.
> A secondary goal is that it is built within the OpenID Foundation. I don't
> know what the technology will look like exactly - both Nat's and David's
> proposals have merit. I think the best way to figure out the tech is to
> implement it, experiment, and try it out in production. I think the wrong
> way to make it happen is to bicker over the exact wording of the working
> group before it's even started.
> >
> > As Allen said, this work will happen - must happen. The main question to
> the OpenID Foundation is whether it wants to encourage innovation or drift
> into irrelevance.
> >
> > On Jun 4, 2010, at 10:08 PM, Dick Hardt wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Allen
> >>
> >> Thanks for the response. My point in this email is that at the end of
> the meeting, it was agreed that Connect was not going to be done in the
> OIDF, which means the WG proposal would be withdrawn. With you and David
> agreeing on the specs council call that Connect should be a WG, that goes
> counter to what we had concluded at the meeting.
> >>
> >> Note that I was not the one to suggest that Connect was not going to be
> in the OIDF, but since that was what everyone had agreed to, there was no
> point in talking about how it would be done in the OIDF.
> >>
> >> -- Dick
> >>
> >>
> >> On 2010-06-04, at 8:58 PM, Allen Tom wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Hi Dick,
> >>>
> >>> Although I might not have expressed this as strongly as I should have
> last Friday, I believe that we should be working on an identity layer for
> OAuth2 within the OIDF.
> >>>
> >>> Yahoo will definitely be implementing this, and I would expect that all
> other OAuth SPs to do the same. It would definitely simplify things if we
> could have a single standard interface that can do everything that OpenID
> 2.0 +AX+Hybrid can do today, and also be extensible to be used for future
> services and even for OP specific proprietary APIs as well.
> >>>
> >>> I expect that an OAuth based identity layer would be widely implemented
> and far more widely used than OpenID, making OpenID largely irrelevant.
> Therefore, I think it's in the OIDFs best interest to back this imitative.
> >>>
> >>> However, on Friday, I did get the impression that there is not
> sufficent consensus to move forward. If that's still the case, then there's
> no point forcing the issue. The work is going to get done either way.
> >>>
> >>> Hope that clarifies things
> >>> Allen
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Jun 4, 2010, at 7:24 PM, Dick Hardt <dick.hardt at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> David, Chris, Joseph, Allen
> >>>>
> >>>> When we met last Friday to discuss how Connect and v.Next would work
> together, the four of you had agreed that it would be best doing the Connect
> work outside the OIDF. I had come to the meeting to talk about how we would
> merge or align the efforts, but since there was consensus to do it outside,
> we did not discuss.
> >>>>
> >>>> From actions I have seen today, it seems that there has been a change
> since then and that you are planning on working on Connect per the original
> charter. As emailed separately, I have concerns with the charter as drafted.
> >>>>
> >>>> I am very disappointed that I learn about your change in mind by
> seeing postings on public mailing lists.
> >>>>
> >>>> WTF?
> >>>>
> >>>> -- Dick
> >>
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Chris Messina
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