[OpenID] GRDDL and OpenID

[Sam Ruby]

Martin Atkins wrote:
> Bob Wyman wrote:
>>  Other than the one-time
>> lookup needed when you're actually writing some OpenID code, the only 
>> other time you're likely to even see the strings is when you're doing 
>> some debugging.
> 
> I'm forced to wonder about whether so many people not directly 
> participating in the OpenID specification effort would be out there 
> evangelizing the "just add two lines of HTML to your blog and you own 
> your identity forever!" concept if those two lines of HTML weren't so 
> easy to remember.

There is a down side to this approach (see below)

> I believe, based on various blog entries and presentations that I've 
> seen, that for many people the simplicity of those two lines of HTML is 
> what has driven so many early adopters to start using and promoting 
> OpenID. I'm wary of anything that makes them any less simple. I was wary 
> enough about the need to now specify
> rel="openid.server openid2.provider" rather than the single rel value as 
> before.
> 
>  > Thus, I would suggest that the problem of memorability is really
>  > relatively minor compared to just about any other benefit that might
>  > be suggested.

If you want to be fatalistic about it, it seems that no matter what you
do, some tools will find some way to generate "yucky" markup, and will
be "collosally bad at consuming them".

http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2007/02/02/Implied-Warranty-of-Fitness#c1170461490

Sorry, I can't resist; but realistically you have to deal with the fact
that once OpenID starts to appeal to the template hackers, other tools
will likely prioritize conformance to OpenID specs in much the same way
that LiveJournal has prioritized conformance to syndication specs.

Frankly, he truth is that from a cut and paste point of view, I don't
think it much matters whether the rel value is 15 characters or 50.  But
from a spec point of view, html link rel values are meant to be case
insensitive, something that will pose interoperability issues with URIs...

And on a related note, while I heard a few murmurs of approval on my
attempts to validate yadis xrd documents, I didn't get much constructive
feedback (in terms people identifying documents that are valid but
flagged, or things that would be helpful to flag).  If still looks to me
like a barn door that people will become interested in closing once the
cow escapes.

- Sam Ruby