[OpenID] Q&A: Who gets to vote?

[Dick Hardt]

Just to clarify, I was speaking as a developer of open source  
libraries and a community member, not as a Foundation board member.

-- Dick

On 18-Sep-08, at 11:43 AM, Peter Williams wrote:

> Fair enough.
>
> This is fine as a developer-centric posture. But, is it really suite  
> to the foundation? ...now appealing to groups wider than coders  
> worried just about libraries?
>
> Should recognize that openid is on a tipping point. It has such  
> massive actual adoption (by folks just don't want to be  
> outmaneuvered), that things only need to tip one small amount ....to  
> go into mass appeal. OpenID + OAUTH may well be it (pargicularly,  
> since the SAML folks are all strungup in self-tied knots on the very  
> concept of fore-ground assertion protocols then supporting web APIs.).
>
> To build the consensus beyond coders, a lot has to do with tone and  
> posture. The foundation needs to be bringing lots of other  
> constituencies to the fore.
>
> For example, you would normally be expecting Gartner and Burton  
> Group to have been bought and paid for in making opinions against  
> openid, by the likes of folks with the kinds of money of involved in  
> running the Liberty Alliance. But note: even these analysts sit on  
> the fence. That's the brand power of Yahoo (OP) and Google (SP) for  
> you! Even MSFT is hedging, just in case.
>
> I have to give credit to the evangelism power of this group. It's  
> quite incredible what you folks have done. But there may be a time  
> to stop evangelizing, so as to capture the momentum. It can slip,  
> just as easy as it can tip.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dick Hardt [mailto:dick.hardt at gmail.com]
> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2008 11:29 AM
> To: Peter Williams
> Cc: Hans Granqvist; OpenID General
> Subject: Re: [OpenID] Q&A: Who gets to vote?
>
>
> On 18-Sep-08, at 11:15 AM, Peter Williams wrote:
>
>> I suspect he is serious. And, woe betide anyone who doesn't use the
>> openid website as the push/promotion point.
>>
>> Not sure why this position is so important. I suspect it's just one
>> person mental model of where "appropriate" competition lies, to
>> "best serve" the community. As such, Ill guess that its just a
>> personal viewpoint - as such views on "competition management"
>> usually vary, widely.
>
> My comment was a clarification on what a number of people on the lists
> have posted in the past that had discouraged Jack.
>
> We all have limited resources. Why build multiple open source
> implementations? Better to unite the efforts in my view and we all
> spend our time further up the stack on differentiating what we did
> with OpenID. Anyone of course can write their own, proprietary OpenID
> stack.
>
> Verisign thought it was better to build their own Java library for
> OpenID
>
> An important part of an open specification is having multiple
> implementations. This ensures that the specification is complete, open
> and interoperable. Given the development of libraries for different
> platforms, we could interop test the different libraries to check for
> holes in the spec and to ensure the spec was complete. (which we did a
> while ago)
>
>>
>> AS you say, 99.9% of the internet uses the opposite model of
>> promoting code implementation, and always has.
>
> your mixing apples and oranges
>
> I have LOTS of experience with open source libraries from my time at
> ActiveState. Developers want to get THE library to work with a
> technology. They don't to have to test out several to see which one
> works and fits their needs best.
>
> -- Dick
>
>