First congratulations to the people involved in the relaunch of <a href="http://openid.net">openid.net</a> - the site looks really great. And second: thanks for setting a link to <a href="http://openiddirectory.com">http://openiddirectory.com
</a> under "where can I use it".<br><br>Concerning the discussion about OpenID provider lists I would like to clarify that the OIDD is a generic directory for every site that supports OpenID login, offers OpenID software for download or provides OpenID services. We do not want to presume to make evaluations about the quality or the importance of a site, that's why we prefer sorting by votes or pagerank. This is also true for the category of OpenID Providers.
<br><br>I am aware of the fact that the way the information on the OIDD is presented does not fit to the users needs when searching solely for a provider. So the basic problem of all discussions on this list can be outlined like this:
<br><br><ul><li>Choosing the first OpenID Provider is the most critical experience for a new user<br></li><li><a href="http://Openid.net">Openid.net</a> is politically not in the position to run an independent provider list with a solid comparison of features, privacy policies and regional legal characteristics
<br></li><li>OpenIDDirectory.com or any other directory has not the appropriate structure to provide the necessary information to the user<br></li></ul>What comes out in the end is OpenID Supporters themselves standing in the way of OpenIDs success!
<br><br>That said, we believe that the task of creating and maintaining an
relieable OPC Chart is best placed in the hands of somebody independent
without any commercial interests (Carsten Poetter <a href="http://notsorelevant.com">http://notsorelevant.com</a>), only supported but not
influenced by my team at Solution Media / <a href="http://openiddirectory.com">openiddirectory.com</a>. This is the reason why I would like to come back to a better solution that me and my friend Carsten have already been posting to this
list a while ago:<br><br>The idea is to have a consumer oriented site running at <a href="http://spreadopenid.org">http://spreadopenid.org</a> which offers - amongst other features - an OpenID Provider Comparison Chart. To do this in the most objective way, Carsten will do most of the editorial part and I will be concentrating on running the site technically. BTW: We will also omit the German OpenID Provider I'm running myself (
<a href="http://meinguter.name">http://meinguter.name</a>) to prevent mixing up any commercial interests.<br><br>We have sent out a questionnaire to a lot of providers already weeks ago, with 90% response. For those not taking part in the first release of the OPC Chart, we will have the questionnaire on
<a href="http://spreadopenid.org">spreadopenid.org</a>, so every provider can take part of it anytime later.<br><br>We appreciate any community help with this task, especially as we think it's important to also compare regional providers in languages other than english. Google translation is not always helping a lot here. In the future
<a href="http://spreadopenid.org">spreadopenid.org</a> could possibly even have translations in different languages to make it even more user-friendly.<br><br>Please tell us your thoughts on this plans.<br>
<br>Thomas (<a href="http://openiddirectory.com">openiddirectory.com</a>) and Carsten (<a href="http://notsorelevant.com">notsorelevant.com</a>)<br><br><br>