IdP vs OP (WAS: RE: "Editors" Conference Call)

[Dick Hardt]

On 6-Nov-06, at 10:25 PM, Drummond Reed wrote:
> Why? It's because in a user-centric identity, the OP is fundamentally
> ********NOT******** (that enough stars for you? ;-) the provider of  
> anyone's
> "identity".

It is providing the OpenID protocol service though, correct?
Not sure if you are wanting to suggest a different name ... are you?

> Let me elaborate. In the last 2 months, I've had numerous  
> conversations with
> SAML proponents asking me, "Why is there so much interest in  
> OpenID? It's
> just reinventing SAML without a lot of the complexity." And each  
> time I
> admit that, to the best of my knowledge, this is largely true.

Just like SMTP was reinventing X.400 and LDAP was reinventing X.500. ;-)

Seriously, SAML is a bunch of things:
	an abstract message specification (SAML 2.0)
	a collection of bindings of the message specification to various  
protocols

The big difference is:
	+ the simplicity of the message,
	+ a lower bar to entry both from a technical and a trust point of  
view, and
	+ a complete description system description that can be deployed

It is likely that a future OpenID extension/version uses the SAML  
message format as more complexity is required in the message.

-- Dick