[OpenID] Changes to the OpenID Foundation member page login

[David Recordon]

Agreed with Chris here.  I don't inherently have a problem with using  
RPX since it does provide value, but the trust root needs to be fixed  
and far more transparency added by the Foundation when choosing to use  
a vendor's product.

I'm also concerned about some of the optics when it comes to JanRain.   
As far as I can tell JanRain has started a consulting engagement when  
one of the developers the OpenID Foundation retained to build the  
membership and elections tool.  The elections tool now has JanRain's  
solution in it.

Given Brian Kissel's growing involvement in the Foundation the past  
few months I would have expected him to disclose this as the CEO of  
JanRain especially as he's currently running for a *community* board  
seat in the election.

As to the developer himself, I have no idea if he has a NDA with  
JanRain that might have prevented this, if he did disclose it to the  
committee of the Foundation that engaged him, or what.  I'm much less  
concerned about his role in all of this as I'm sure in both  
engagements he's just doing what he's being paid to do.

--David

On Dec 5, 2008, at 11:08 AM, Chris Messina wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 11:00 AM, Steven Livingstone-Perez <weblivz at hotmail.com 
> > wrote:
> I don't really have much of a say on this (other than being a new  
> member)
> and you may 100% disagree with me, but IMHO there *is* an argument  
> that in
> using best of breed products we can demonstrate the power of OpenID  
> to users
> ... compared with the cost/effort to implement something that  
> already does a
> really good job.
>
> No argument there. Making OpenID seem awesome (or live up to its  
> promised awesomeness) isn't really something that I'm questioning.
>
> This kind of experience can be done without the use of a vendor  
> product, though, but requires quite a bit more work and time.
>
>
> I do understand the endorsement aspect, but on the other hand the UX  
> is the
> biggest issue OpenID seems to have at the moment and it seems to me  
> that
> using such products (so long as they are donated as such and not  
> specific
> long term to any one company) can only be a positive thing.
>
> Therein lies the rub. I'm not arguing against using RPX, but for  
> concealing it in the trust root (since currently people end up  
> trusting *.rpxnow.com rather than openid.net — thereby creating a  
> long term situation that's hard to switch from (without users having  
> to *reassociate*)) and for getting some transparency into how the  
> decision to use RPX was made.
>
> I agree with Eran that the experience is better -- but let's not set  
> a poor precedent in the interest of expediency.
>
> Chris
>
> -- 
> Chris Messina
> Citizen-Participant &
>  Open Technology Advocate-at-Large
> factoryjoe.com # diso-project.org
> citizenagency.com # vidoop.com
> This email is:   [ ] bloggable    [X] ask first   [ ] private
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