[OpenID] JanRain library licensing (was: Re: On OpenID 2.0)

[James Walker]

Hey guys, I'm kinda just hopping into the middle of this thread with a
general comment (was offline last week, doing catchup now) ... but just
to sum up the "drupal" stance -- Dries is cc'ed here so he can flame me
if I'm lying - but here's the scoop:

The decision to not use JanRain's libraries has nothing to do with the
quality of the libraries - it's a Drupal policy. Not necessarily one
that I personally chose - but one that I've long since given up the
battle on. The issue is really one of coding style - specifically as it
relates to ease of auditing. Getting bit by the big XML-RPC hole a year
or so ago sort of strengthened (rightly or wrongly) the anti-outside
library stance. There are arguments on both sides of that fence and this
certainly isn't the forum for any of that... but the fact is - we want
(and have committed to) including OpenID RP support with Drupal 6 core -
so that's the rules we gots to play by.

Personally, I think the JanRain stuff is great - and I've pimped their
libraries to PHP developers in presentations at least twice (Vancouver
PHP and the OSCMS Summit) already - and will continue to do so.

I'll close with this too - as someone who has implemented a lot of "open
 specs" in the past couple years - having multiple implementations in
the wild is actually a very good thing... I've found anyway. Helps make
sure we're reading and writing to the spec appropriately ...

And to clear up any confusion - yes, I'm the dude to yell at if you're
seeing issues with the Drupal code. Contact details in my .sig

Cheers.

On 5/6/07 8:34 AM, Recordon, David wrote:
> Building on what Chris said, there is no reason the full library would
> have to be included with Drupal.  You could remove the storage mechanism
> classes and such which are not needed, replace one which ties into the
> Drupal system, and then only include that.  I'd imagine the JanRain guys
> would be happy to help point you in the right direction for this as
> well.
> 
> --David 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: general-bounces at openid.net [mailto:general-bounces at openid.net] On
> Behalf Of Chris Messina
> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 11:33 AM
> To: Dries Buytaert
> Cc: openid-general
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] JanRain library licensing (was: Re: On OpenID 2.0)
> 
> That's fair. I wonder though if it might be possible to abstract parts
> to simply reduce the amount of redundant OpenID code in the wild. If
> that's not possible, that's fine -- but my interest is in having people
> have a consistent and optimal OpenID experience -- no matter what
> platform they're on. As long as the Drupal library/implementation stays
> up on current best practices and behaviors, then there's no reason to
> continue this discussion and push for Drupal to use the JanRain
> libraries.
> 
> Chris
> 
> On 5/4/07, Dries Buytaert <dries at buytaert.net> wrote:
>> On 03 May 2007, at 21:00, Chris Messina wrote:
>>> Can you expand on what you didn't like. You're certainly fine to 
>>> write your own, but we're openly wondering whether another PHP 
>>> implementation really makes sense or if we can tweak the existing 
>>> library to better fit your needs.
>>>
>>> If not, no problem.
>> Well, last time we checked the OpenID library, it was big. If I 
>> remember correctly, the OpenID library shipped with its own database 
>> abstraction layer, its own input sanitizing, etc, etc.  A framework 
>> like Drupal already provides all of that functionality and we didn't 
>> want to duplicate that.  Our current open ID module is 10 KB rather 
>> than 290 KB (in zipped format).  I think Drupal itself is 650 KB.
>>
>> --
>> Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/
>>
>>
> 
> 
> --
> Chris Messina
> Citizen Provocateur &
>   Open Source Ambassador-at-Large
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-- 
James Walker :: http://walkah.net/ :: xmpp:walkah at walkah.net