[OpenID] OpenID Extension to handle Emails Addresses?

[Peter Williams]

Its always easier to do idp centric authorities and directories. A few "trusted" firms own the infrastructure, and governments love the control point that this represents.

Openid has propelled the notion that with uci, one does now have the ability to go further. Without losing that infrastructure benefit, anyone can overlay additionl semantics .

In the certs world, this was possible too : but the power of the idps (and govt backing) was too strong then to make it happen. They simply outspent the $50M we spent trying to break the idp centic model.

-----Original Message-----
From: SitG Admin <sysadmin at shadowsinthegarden.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2008 5:41 PM
To: Hallam-Baker, Phillip <pbaker at verisign.com>
Cc: general at openid.net <general at openid.net>
Subject: Re: [OpenID] OpenID Extension to handle Emails Addresses?


>You think that educating the public at large, the billion user
>population of the Internet is an easier proposition than changing a
>few pieces of code?

Try parsing that again:
"I concede that users may find change more difficult than remaining
as they were."

>There are several million email servers on the Internet. What is
>being proposed here is much simpler than running a mail server.

So is what we have now. You speak as if providing identity is a
serious business that *already* offers barriers to entry equivalent
(at least) to what they currently are for a mail server, and the
lowering of these standards is something new. In the sense of "OpenID
is new" it may be, but within the context of OpenID users already
have it that easy - and I, for one, scoff at the idea of abandoning
this just because someone dashes up to me and announces that "things
have changed" and I now have to qualify for running a mail server if
I want to run my own IDP anymore.

And this is the danger of OpenID, to serious businesses. Once users
experience freedom, they may never be willing to let go, and an
entire business model could become no longer viable. How can
businesses charge money for something that's essentially free?

To quote Bob Blakley, when was the last time you bought a bottle of water?

-Shade
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