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

[Eric Norman]

On May 11, 2007, at 1:46 PM, Christopher St John wrote:

> On 5/11/07, Josh Hoyt <josh at janrain.com> wrote:
>> On 5/10/07, James Walker <walkah at walkah.net> wrote:
>>> 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 ...
>>
>> Sorry to single you out, James, but I'm tired of hearing this
>> justification for *yet another* implementation.
>
> I believe the implication was that multiple implementations made
> the spec itself better, and helped solidify the interpretation of
> ambiguities and identify holes.

+1

I heard James say that his interest was feedback for
the spec authors.  When interoperability testing discovers
something that doesn't work, the authors of the spec can
wave them around and say "See here; you didn't read these".
(This is a common phenomenon.  In some circles, it's called
RFC wars).

But another thing they can do is ask themselves if perhaps
the specs weren't written very well and then improve them.

Eric Norman