[OpenID - Eu] Status of the OpenID Foundation Euro

Tue Dec 8 08:57:22 UTC 2009

On 08.12.2009, at 3:18, Henrik Biering wrote:

> Martin, you are addressing a serious dilemma that I have given some thought during this nomination period. On the one side, if OIDF was already effectively a global organization, everyone should nominate themselves and everyone voting should place their votes without regard for nationality.
There's a slight difference between global and global. You can't compare McDonalds and UNESCO for example, yet they are both "global" organizations.
Never have I thought about nationalities but I sure have had in mind "regional interests" which in theory could be described as a set of common interests that relate to the original idea of OIDE and EU affairs and might be a bit different than the US point of view. I also realize that on the "web 2.0 internet scale" there are no borders and just a global internet and still just a single OpenID, but for example non-obvious uses of OpenID local matters and local organizations play a more important role. To better choreograph lobby efforts towards EU institutions and local internet communities an action plan must be created. It shall require resources by either OIDE (in real life, participating people) or  enough justified interest by local companies with resources and market share to make a point. In theory OIDF could provide some of it but no matter what happens to OIDF we, the people on this list with a relation to OIDE goals, should make it happen. Companies who'll make the decision to support the effort need to allocate resources and to make this kind of work meaningful, a functioning umbrella organization must exist, be it OIDE or OIDF or something else . I don't believe OIDF itself will make something magically happen in EU nor that OIDF is attractive enough to advance OpenID in non-web2 blog-picture-status-share-applications.

And BTW, as a true independent international organization, OIDF should be headquartered in Switzerland ;)

> But as this is clearly not the case yet, I think we should be excused to play some tactics in order to ensure that Europe gets at least one and possible two persons on the OIDF board. Of course we may just all vote for all the 4 European candidates. But if the US/International votes are distributed on four candidates, chances are that none of the European candidates get elected. We are certainly up against some VERY qualified people from the US and the rest of the world!
> 
> Last year Snorri and Nat were the only candidates from outside the US - and they ended up first and second overall http://openid.net/2008/12/ .

The way I see it, Nat has been and is today very active on all fronts, including technical, community as well as business relations. I believe he is uniquely positioned to achieve goals in Japan/Asia as well as internationally - I don't know anyone else who is working full time on OpenID matters.
Snorri had a very active  and "huge" campaign with all means todays social media mechanisms can support. That is known to generate results in real life as well. Unfortunately he has no time to deal with OpenID.

> My view of the problem space for OpenID in Europe happens to be very similar to the one expressed by yourself, Kick, and Chris in various posts, and I would have nominated myself if you and Kick had not been on the list.
As I've said before, I don't see anything über in OIDF and still believe that for the better or worst, a model more similar to Apache Software Foundation would serve the community better than the current scheme, but I'm OK with current situation as well.
I nominated myself just because there were no nominations from Europe and because I have a somewhat intriguing point of view. The board

> Robert and Björn definitely also have strong qualifications in different areas, but my impression based on your previous writings (I know none of the candidates in person) is that you and Kick have an edge on the combination of technical, business _and_ EU-political insight required to ensure that the European problem space can be communicated appropriately at the board level. And as you state yourself, I think that Kick as a Dutch ("core EU") candidate will carry more weight as a reference in our local danish efforts to deploy OpenID than Estonia and Switzerland.
The ideal representative would have substantial knowledge of the mentioned areas and most importantly, be a very active point of contact for the rest of us and as needed, organize and initiate local matters, events, discussions etc. Active two-way communication would be essential.

> So my personal "Danish/European" proposal is that we as a European team rather than competing individuals should consider:
> a. Pool the European votes around one or possibly two candidates, in my view 1. Kick, 2. Martin
> b. Structure the work to combine our efforts whereever possible and useful - and jointly supporting our elected board member(s).
> 
> PS: I have copied Kick and Björn on this mail. I don't know if Björn is even aware of the OpenID Europe (OIDE) history and current issues: http://wiki.openid.net/OIDE-2010

I'll wait to read their responses.

Meanwhile, we should think about your point b. and try to come up with some work plan for OIDE/EU region.

I can't edit the wiki, yet...

-- 
Martin Paljak
http://martin.paljak.pri.ee
+372.515.6495