[OpenID] Case for a unified scheme for OpenID "oid:"

[Santosh Rajan]

I have been thinking of OpenID's representing a universal set of identities
for months now. Given that we all agree that identities must be URI's, there
is one solution to the problem we can consider for OpenID v.next.

One of the problems with OpenID's is that it only supports a subset of all
URI's, the "http" scheme. One of the solutions is to allow OpenID to support
more URI schemes. But then I realized this would only let the cat among the
pigeons. We could not allow an infinite no of schemes that come up in the
future asking for OpenID support.

Instead I have come to the conclusion that the best solution for OpenID is
to register its own scheme. I will explain the suggested scheme with the
following example.

1) oid:example.com/joe
2) oid:joe @ example.com
3) oid:example.com:1234567890

And here is the URI syntax for the 3 examples above

1) oid:<host>[/[[path]][#fragment]
2) oid: <username>@<host>
3) oid: <host>:<id-string>

(1) and (2) are self evident. (1) is the http URI. (2) supports the email
like identifier. (3) requires more explanation. People are used to "id's",
which may be an id issued by a govt or bank or any organization that has
members. A lot of people already have access to this id which they are
already using online. It may be a national identity no, or a company
username or whatever. By supporting option (3) we allow those organizations
who want to support OpenID to continue to allow their users to use the same
id's they are used to. (Of course i have stretched (3) a bit to include govt
and banks which is far fetched now considering the security implication, but
lets assume we will be able to solve those problems).

Please feel free to comment on this idea which ever way you like.

-- 
http://hi.im/santosh
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