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Re: [News] Project Strives to Unify open Source Identity Management

__/ [ Guy Fawkes ] on Tuesday 23 January 2007 18:59 \__

> 
> "Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> schreef in bericht
> news:1649356.0C2a29pu0h@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Liberty Alliance courts open-source projects
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | "The idea behind OpenLiberty is to provide a community for
>> | open-source developers to communicate and collaborate on open
>> | identity standards," Jason Roualt, vice president of Liberty
>> | Alliance, said in an interview. "There are a few open-source
>> | efforts around identity, but the main thing that they are
>> | missing is the ability to support identity-based Web services,
>> | getting beyond single sign-on to sharing identity attributes."
>> `----
>>
>>
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6152236.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news
>> http://tinyurl.com/2xvv2e
>>
>> The industry wants interoperability and collaboration, but behold this:
>>
>> Liberty Alliance, Microsoft discuss identity protocols
>>
> 
> Does anyone remember Microsoft Passport and the row it created about 6
> years ago? Not long after that the Liberty Alliance sprung into existence
> and offered an 'open' implementation of the same service Microsoft was
> promising. Since then, nothing has happened since Microsoft's
> implementation didn't take off but neither did the Liberty's Alliance's.
> 
> Now Microsoft comes along with another new similar (but different) feature
> called InfoCard and guess what? People and companies are up in arms again
> over it and
> another rival 'open' project springs up.
> 
> Look, I'm a great open-source proponent but why do they have to copy and
> imitate everything Microsoft does? Why not just follow up on the Liberty
> Alliance global login system? I think I know the answer. The openness of
> the system is also it's weakness.
> 
> I'll illustrate this with the Jabber XML standard. It was developed as a
> potential rival to Microsoft's MSN and I tried to implement a client for it
> some years ago. And then it dawned on me that Jabber was never going to be
> as easy to use as MSN. Why? Because the Jabber standard allows multiple
> Jabber networks to co-exist and talk to each other (through gateways)
> whilst MSN only has a single network to worry about. Jabber clients on
> different networks may or may not see each other depending on how and if
> gateways are installed. It then dawned on me that this standard simply
> isn't going to work. It's much simpler to have everyone on a single
> network, much easier to use and a much better 'user experience.' The
> 'openness' of Jabber actually doomed it since it would result in networks
> which could be seperate even though they speak the same tongue.
> 
> This just to illustrate that 'open' isn't always better. In fact, it may
> even have stiffled innovation as true success of Passport could have
> ignited the online retail and services business even further.

I advise you to have a look at this essay:

Does Issuing Passports Make Microsoft a Country?

"...One day, Expedia could start offering higher fares to customers who have
more than a million dollars in their Investor stock portfolio. There?s not
really anything technically impossible about this, and it's probably legal,
too..."
 
"...The scary thing is that if you use Internet Explorer, Microsoft controls
your web browser..."

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000047.html


Bear in mind that Microsoft's new endeavours have gone as far as offering a
Firefox plugin, in order to promote and spread its new proprietary system.
I'd take inferior openness any day. Identity should not be controlled by
companies. Companies should be using identity services, but not manage them.
While on this topic, I hope the back end of Second Life gets GPL'ed as well.

-- 
                        ~~ Best wishes 

Roy S. Schestowitz     | Kernel panic - more exciting than being /.'ted
http://Schestowitz.com  |  Open Prospects   ¦     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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