[OpenID] host-meta and "acct:"

[Peter Williams]

As is typical, I actually learned something from the partial-rant: acct, and
its assumed importance to the story being formulated in the standard. I had
not picked that up. Im still at the point that the initiative is about URI
scheme mappings... of any sort; and evaluatin the claim that a host cannot
be a foaf-agent with a URI (and thus the whole orientation MUST be "all
about domains" instead). 

Typing xri:... at the browser bar or typing acct:... sounds nuts. 1.5
billion people are educated to type and recognize http URIs in that
particular location. XRI made a good try, though. It failed (in that role).

I dont know if the histrionics about the acct: scheme were really
necessary... but they made the agenda politics SOUND interesting. A little
conspiracy does wonders for making threads about telematic infrsatructure
evolution enjoyable. Standards and their lobbys are always about folks
pursuing their agendas, which is fine so long as the process is pretty open
and fun. (Its never ever 100% open. There is always a backchannel amongst
the "real" insiders who are spending real cash.)

on W3C, Ive been practicising my early-learner skills trying to write a file
with foaf classes, to do what host-meta does. Now therein lies some
interesting politics: if RDF with foaf classes does what XRD.host-meta does,
and the URI does for hosts what domains do in the IETF's host-meta
conception of the world, will that help or hinder bringing W3C types on
board? 

Also, as foaf+ssl's assertion of a WebID in SSL client certs ties in with
the use of https server certs on the (webid-derived) "host" site delivering
the user's foaf file (which then plays the role of the openid assertion
message, when pulled over the https backchannel), does this "host's" rules
for cloud outsourcing of app-domains written up in rdf/foaf help or hinder
W3C endorsement of  XRD (and the host-meta profile) ?





Santosh Rajan wrote:
> 
> http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-hammer-hostmeta-01.txt
> 
> If you have read the spec above, you will wonder where did the "acct:"
> scheme come from. It came from webfinger. The host-meta spec has been
> work in progress for a while now. Its predecessor was the "site-meta"
> spec. The idea of webfinger came later, in may 2009,and the idea of
> "acct:" about two months back. Given that webfinger is to follow
> host-meta, the question is "How come host-meta is following
> webfinger?".
> 
> Think about it. There is an obvious attempt to legitimize the "acct:"
> scheme here. That is not a bad idea. I like it actually. Consider
> this. If I type "acct:santrajan at gmail.com
> <acct%3Asantrajan at gmail.com>" into my browser location bar, my browser
> would retrieve my XRD. Now this is an extreme example. But I hope you
> get the idea. If not please ask me.
> 
> Unfortunately I have a problem with this idea, even though I like it,
> this is not the way to do it. The problem is that if you want to
> legitimize "acct:" you need to be a software engineer contortionist.
> You need to "Reject" Subject from the host-meta, and you need to add
> "Scope" into the host-meta.
> 
> My contention is that if you really want to this, (and I like the
> idea), let us get all the DNS, w3c folk on board and do it. Doing it
> via the "backdoor" is going to cause more harm to the "identity
> movement" than good.
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://hi.im/santosh
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> general at lists.openid.net
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> 
> 
> -----
> 
> Santosh Rajan
> http://santrajan.blogspot.com 
> 

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