[OpenID] Is Ignoring Attribute Exchange a strategic error?

Martin Atkins mart at degeneration.co.uk
Fri Jan 19 18:06:31 UTC 2007


Simon Willison wrote:
> On 18 Jan 2007, at 17:49, Dick Hardt wrote:
> 
>> First let's make sure we are not confusing the OpenID Exchange
>> proposal from Martin and the OpenID Attribute Exchange proposal.[1]  
>> (AX)
> 
> It seems it would be a good idea for Martin's OpenID Exchange  
> proposal to find a less confusing name. "OpenID Data Exchange" would  
> at least clearly differentiate it from attribute exchange, although  
> "data" and "attribute" have pretty similar meanings. "OpenID  
> Transport" maybe?

I agree wholeheartedly.

The problem with naming it is that it's such a conceptually "thin" layer 
that it's hard to pin down what it does; it's really just a platform for 
other protocols like "Post In My Weblog"[1]. As I've noted previously, 
it could even potentially serve as a transport layer for attribute exchange.

"OpenID Transport" could work, although that makes it sound like OpenID 
Authentication (our main spec, after all) runs atop it, which is 
obviously not the case.

Perhaps an obnoxious acronym like "User-accompanied HTTP request 
transfer protocol"! (UAHRTP) :)

[1] http://openid.net/wiki/index.php/Post_In_My_Weblog





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