[OpenID] Fwd: ID Community and Berkman Center

[Brian Hamlin]

Begin forwarded message:
>
> On Sep 10, 2009, at 11:53 PM, Michael Sippey wrote:
>
>> I'm not familiar with what's happening with John Clippinger, but I can
>> attest to the roots of OpenID (the spec), which were with Brad
>> Fitzpatrick in a Six Apart conference room in SF back in '05.  At the
>> time we were developing vox.com and trying to solve the problem of
>> making sure that LiveJournal users didn't have to create yet another
>> username and password to sign in to comment on Vox (and vice versa).
>>
>> I know there was a ton of politics around the different identity
>> communities back then (Sxip!  Ping!  Etc.!  (and obviously the
>> politics carry on to this day)) but the beauty of working with Brad
>> was watching him focus intently on solving a challenging technical
>> problem with elegant solutions, community politics be damned.
>>
>> </delurk>
>
> Hi Michael-
>
>   yes, and....
>
>   As I recall, it was not at all clear that there would be one 
> standard that would rise.. Yadis/LID also had the same claim to a 
> simple, elegant technical solution.. Sxip was working very closely 
> with Microsoft meanwhile, with Redmond stinging after their very 
> public fail with Passport.. and then there was Higgins at Berkman.. 
> far afield was Drumon Reed with XRI...
>
>   Each one of these camps had their own reasons why they were going to 
> be it, but, like a currency of a sovereign nation, everyone in the 
> back of their heads knew that a partial standard was no standard at 
> all.. The potential for the victor was enormous! and yet, there had to 
> be compromise...
>
>   Its easy to say in hindsight that Brad Fitzpatrick did this.. but, 
> there is another side to it, too, that has to do with bringing all 
> these parties together and hashing something out.. That did indeed 
> happen, which brought us to today...
>
>   best regards from Berkeley
>     -Brian
>
>