The problem with OpenID (TAKE 3) How to become Linus Torvalds

[Santosh Rajan]

First of all let me humbly post a link to a very interesting article I have
seen recently.

I will give you the link to the article posted below. Before you read the
article, please do give me my 0.02 cents.

As far as my knowledge goes "Linus" was working for a company called
"Transmeta". I have no idea what happened to "Transmeta". Please don't tell
me that today he is working for one of the following companies. (Google,
Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft etc etc).

You know why? Because this is what the OpenID board is made of. Atleast the
majority of the board members work for the BIG GUYS i have shown you in the
brackets.

Now are you surprised that according to "David Recordon" we haven';t had a
new spec since 2007?



http://www.h-online.com/open/features/How-to-Become-Linus-Torvalds-999542.html

[Dan Brickley]

Post by Santosh Rajan
First of all let me humbly post a link to a very interesting article I have
seen recently.
I will give you the link to the article posted below. Before you read the
article, please do give me my 0.02 cents.
As far as my knowledge goes "Linus" was working for a company called
"Transmeta". I have no idea what happened to "Transmeta". Please don't tell
me that today he is working for one of the following companies. (Google,
Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft etc etc).
You know why? Because this is what the OpenID board ?is made of. Atleast the
majority of the board members work for the BIG GUYS i have shown you in the
brackets.
Now are you surprised that according to "David Recordon" we haven';t had a
new spec since 2007?
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/How-to-Become-Linus-Torvalds-999542.html

Since David joined Facebook less than a year ago, I'm not going to
subscribe to your conspiracy theory. Hmm, unless Facebook have somehow
harnessed the awesome power of 1/2 billion people procrastinating, and
channeled it through a time machine back to 2008 somehow to disrupt
the evolution of open standards.

Meanwhile, how about making practical rather than personal remarks?

There's no point in updating specs for their own sake; let's only do
it when we've got solid ideas for improving them.

Rather than jumping into acronym soup, where are the requirements
documents for whatever-comes-next? What's it supposed to do? How does
it appear to users? If those drafts exist, comment on them here and
leave the conspiracy theory for your blog. If they don't exist, make
some proposals...

Dan

[Santosh Rajan]

This is really sad because you are trying to imply that "I am involved in a
conspiracy theory". And why are you only mentioning "Facebook"? I mentioned
all the big guys in my post. Please read my post very carefully. "I have
mentioned all the big names".

Post by Santosh Rajan

Post by Santosh Rajan
First of all let me humbly post a link to a very interesting article I

have

Post by Santosh Rajan
seen recently.
I will give you the link to the article posted below. Before you read the
article, please do give me my 0.02 cents.
As far as my knowledge goes "Linus" was working for a company called
"Transmeta". I have no idea what happened to "Transmeta". Please don't

tell

Post by Santosh Rajan
me that today he is working for one of the following companies. (Google,
Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft etc etc).
You know why? Because this is what the OpenID board is made of. Atleast

the

Post by Santosh Rajan
majority of the board members work for the BIG GUYS i have shown you in

the

Post by Santosh Rajan
brackets.
Now are you surprised that according to "David Recordon" we haven';t had

a

Post by Santosh Rajan
new spec since 2007?

http://www.h-online.com/open/features/How-to-Become-Linus-Torvalds-999542.html
Since David joined Facebook less than a year ago, I'm not going to
subscribe to your conspiracy theory. Hmm, unless Facebook have somehow
harnessed the awesome power of 1/2 billion people procrastinating, and
channeled it through a time machine back to 2008 somehow to disrupt
the evolution of open standards.
Meanwhile, how about making practical rather than personal remarks?
There's no point in updating specs for their own sake; let's only do
it when we've got solid ideas for improving them.
Rather than jumping into acronym soup, where are the requirements
documents for whatever-comes-next? What's it supposed to do? How does
it appear to users? If those drafts exist, comment on them here and
leave the conspiracy theory for your blog. If they don't exist, make
some proposals...
Dan

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

You have the chronology wrong. Linus started work on Linux round about
the time the Web was being put together. I remember some rather testy
comments from Tennebaum round '92 (he thought Linus should look at a
microkernel which were fashionable at the time).

By 1994 it was already clear that Linux was a clear contender to
become the main Open Source operating system. I remember talking to
RMS on my way back from the first Web conference and realizing that
the GNU HURD was vaporware and concluding that Linux or NetBSD was
almost certain to win that race.

Linus did not join Transmeta till much later, after Linux was already
an industry force. Transmeta wanted to advertise their new chip and
hiring Linus to continue work on Linux was a good way to do that.

The situation here is very different. We have a lot of companies and
people whose main interest is publicity for solving the problem of
'identity'. And some people are even making the somewhat peculiar
argument that we should first decide what Identity is and then try to
solve it. Which is a sign of how far wrong we are.

I don't think that we really need a single named champion to succeed
here. Suggesting we go that route is only going to make matters worse,
not better. What is the incentive for people to participate if they
are going to see their bad ideas shot down and someone else takes
credit for the good ones?

That is not how the Web or Linux were put together. The Web and Linux
were possible because Tim and Linus were the type of people who shared
the credit. In Tim's case he almost shared too much and a certain
individual apparently decided to step in and take all the credit
instead. I have a somewhat hilarious book written by his PR agency
which purports to biography the architects of the Web but doesn't have
a chapter on Tim at all.


My view is that we should stop talking about 'identity' all together.
We should instead define the range of problems we want to solve as use
cases and go solve them. Identity is too much of an abstraction, it
can stand for anything.

Post by Santosh Rajan
First of all let me humbly post a link to a very interesting article I have
seen recently.
I will give you the link to the article posted below. Before you read the
article, please do give me my 0.02 cents.
As far as my knowledge goes "Linus" was working for a company called
"Transmeta". I have no idea what happened to "Transmeta". Please don't tell
me that today he is working for one of the following companies. (Google,
Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft etc etc).
You know why? Because this is what the OpenID board ?is made of. Atleast the
majority of the board members work for the BIG GUYS i have shown you in the
brackets.
Now are you surprised that according to "David Recordon" we haven';t had a
new spec since 2007?
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/How-to-Become-Linus-Torvalds-999542.html
--
http://hi.im/santosh
_______________________________________________
specs mailing list
specs at lists.openid.net
http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-specs

[SitG Admin]

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
My view is that we should stop talking about 'identity' all together.
We should instead define the range of problems we want to solve as use
cases and go solve them. Identity is too much of an abstraction, it
can stand for anything.

+1 to targeting problems rather than ideals (at that layer).

The abstraction (of identity) is this community's strength and
weakness; it names the Purpose that brings everyone together, and it
calls in people from all over who may be able to contribute
something. This concentration of diverse ideas, though, doesn't
create a single harmonious overlap of equally distributed strength;
there are outliers, ideas that aren't shared much by others here. The
two are opposite sides of the same coin.

To restate this in a slightly different way, it's a popularity
contest: none of us can decide what idea will see the most adoption,
since none of us can make those decisions for everyone else. Nearly
any idea is probably going to be seen as a bad one by *some* person
in the group (Santosh helps make statistics come *true*!), and we
should each be prepared to occasionally bite the bullet and accept
that it's *our* turn to be left out in the cold. (Then leave our
unpopular ideas behind and come in for a warm meal and whatever work
has got so many members of the community in the commons house.)

-Shade

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

To me the reason the problem goes beyond simply authentication +
attributes is that we are providing a resolution mechanism for Web
'principals' identified through consistent, machine readable, human
friendly identifiers.

So 'Phillip Hallam-Baker' is not a useful identifier in this case as
even though this example is unique, the class of identifiers it is a
member of are not unique and thus not useful as machine readable
identifiers. Contrawise any identifier of the form '=292rj239e!' might
be machine readable in the right circumstances but certainly isn't
human friendly.


A principal here is most often going to be a Web User but could in
certain circumstances be a computer process or agent running on a
machine or could be some abstract corporate entity.

A principal may be an individual or may be an individual acting in a
specific role. So fred at gmail.com and fred at google.com might be the
exact same person but respond differently due to the fact that in one
role he may be acting in a corporate capacity.

A principal might even by a physical location such as a building.
malden#friendlies.com might be the Friendlies restaurant at Malden.


A resolution of a principal may mean:

* Authenticating an interaction with the principal
* An email message
* A log in attempt
* A permission that has been granted by Principal A to Principal B
* Initiating an interaction with the principal
* An email message
* An instant message
* Making a reference to the principal
* Asserting that the principal initiated a communication
* Asserting that the principal has a property
* Asserting that principal A is the source of assertion B
concerning principal C



On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:48 AM, SitG Admin

Post by SitG Admin

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
My view is that we should stop talking about 'identity' all together.
We should instead define the range of problems we want to solve as use
cases and go solve them. Identity is too much of an abstraction, it
can stand for anything.

+1 to targeting problems rather than ideals (at that layer).
The abstraction (of identity) is this community's strength and weakness; it
names the Purpose that brings everyone together, and it calls in people from
all over who may be able to contribute something. This concentration of
diverse ideas, though, doesn't create a single harmonious overlap of equally
distributed strength; there are outliers, ideas that aren't shared much by
others here. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.
To restate this in a slightly different way, it's a popularity contest: none
of us can decide what idea will see the most adoption, since none of us can
make those decisions for everyone else. Nearly any idea is probably going to
be seen as a bad one by *some* person in the group (Santosh helps make
statistics come *true*!), and we should each be prepared to occasionally
bite the bullet and accept that it's *our* turn to be left out in the cold.
(Then leave our unpopular ideas behind and come in for a warm meal and
whatever work has got so many members of the community in the commons
house.)
-Shade

[Santosh Rajan]

You know something, "James A Michener" once said "All men above forty are
stupid". Let me admit that I turned 50 in the month of march 2010.

How old are you "Phillip Hallam-Baker"?

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
To me the reason the problem goes beyond simply authentication +
attributes is that we are providing a resolution mechanism for Web
'principals' identified through consistent, machine readable, human
friendly identifiers.
So 'Phillip Hallam-Baker' is not a useful identifier in this case as
even though this example is unique, the class of identifiers it is a
member of are not unique and thus not useful as machine readable
identifiers. Contrawise any identifier of the form '=292rj239e!' might
be machine readable in the right circumstances but certainly isn't
human friendly.
A principal here is most often going to be a Web User but could in
certain circumstances be a computer process or agent running on a
machine or could be some abstract corporate entity.
A principal may be an individual or may be an individual acting in a
specific role. So fred at gmail.com and fred at google.com might be the
exact same person but respond differently due to the fact that in one
role he may be acting in a corporate capacity.
A principal might even by a physical location such as a building.
malden#friendlies.com might be the Friendlies restaurant at Malden.
* Authenticating an interaction with the principal
* An email message
* A log in attempt
* A permission that has been granted by Principal A to Principal B
* Initiating an interaction with the principal
* An email message
* An instant message
* Making a reference to the principal
* Asserting that the principal initiated a communication
* Asserting that the principal has a property
* Asserting that principal A is the source of assertion B
concerning principal C
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:48 AM, SitG Admin

Post by SitG Admin

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
My view is that we should stop talking about 'identity' all together.
We should instead define the range of problems we want to solve as use
cases and go solve them. Identity is too much of an abstraction, it
can stand for anything.

+1 to targeting problems rather than ideals (at that layer).
The abstraction (of identity) is this community's strength and weakness;

it

Post by SitG Admin
names the Purpose that brings everyone together, and it calls in people

from

Post by SitG Admin
all over who may be able to contribute something. This concentration of
diverse ideas, though, doesn't create a single harmonious overlap of

equally

Post by SitG Admin
distributed strength; there are outliers, ideas that aren't shared much

by

Post by SitG Admin
others here. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.

none

Post by SitG Admin
of us can decide what idea will see the most adoption, since none of us

can

Post by SitG Admin
make those decisions for everyone else. Nearly any idea is probably going

to

Post by SitG Admin
be seen as a bad one by *some* person in the group (Santosh helps make
statistics come *true*!), and we should each be prepared to occasionally
bite the bullet and accept that it's *our* turn to be left out in the

cold.

Post by SitG Admin
(Then leave our unpopular ideas behind and come in for a warm meal and
whatever work has got so many members of the community in the commons
house.)
-Shade

--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
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specs mailing list
specs at lists.openid.net
http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-specs

[David Recordon]

I don't see what age has anything to do with technical discussions (which is what this list is meant for).

You know something, "James A Michener" once said "All men above forty are stupid". Let me admit that I turned 50 in the month of march 2010.
How old are you "Phillip Hallam-Baker"?
To me the reason the problem goes beyond simply authentication +
attributes is that we are providing a resolution mechanism for Web
'principals' identified through consistent, machine readable, human
friendly identifiers.
So 'Phillip Hallam-Baker' is not a useful identifier in this case as
even though this example is unique, the class of identifiers it is a
member of are not unique and thus not useful as machine readable
identifiers. Contrawise any identifier of the form '=292rj239e!' might
be machine readable in the right circumstances but certainly isn't
human friendly.
A principal here is most often going to be a Web User but could in
certain circumstances be a computer process or agent running on a
machine or could be some abstract corporate entity.
A principal may be an individual or may be an individual acting in a
specific role. So fred at gmail.com and fred at google.com might be the
exact same person but respond differently due to the fact that in one
role he may be acting in a corporate capacity.
A principal might even by a physical location such as a building.
malden#friendlies.com might be the Friendlies restaurant at Malden.
* Authenticating an interaction with the principal
* An email message
* A log in attempt
* A permission that has been granted by Principal A to Principal B
* Initiating an interaction with the principal
* An email message
* An instant message
* Making a reference to the principal
* Asserting that the principal initiated a communication
* Asserting that the principal has a property
* Asserting that principal A is the source of assertion B
concerning principal C
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:48 AM, SitG Admin

Post by SitG Admin

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
My view is that we should stop talking about 'identity' all together.
We should instead define the range of problems we want to solve as use
cases and go solve them. Identity is too much of an abstraction, it
can stand for anything.

+1 to targeting problems rather than ideals (at that layer).
The abstraction (of identity) is this community's strength and weakness; it
names the Purpose that brings everyone together, and it calls in people from
all over who may be able to contribute something. This concentration of
diverse ideas, though, doesn't create a single harmonious overlap of equally
distributed strength; there are outliers, ideas that aren't shared much by
others here. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.
To restate this in a slightly different way, it's a popularity contest: none
of us can decide what idea will see the most adoption, since none of us can
make those decisions for everyone else. Nearly any idea is probably going to
be seen as a bad one by *some* person in the group (Santosh helps make
statistics come *true*!), and we should each be prepared to occasionally
bite the bullet and accept that it's *our* turn to be left out in the cold.
(Then leave our unpopular ideas behind and come in for a warm meal and
whatever work has got so many members of the community in the commons
house.)
-Shade

--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
_______________________________________________
specs mailing list
specs at lists.openid.net
http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-specs
--
http://hi.im/santosh
_______________________________________________
specs mailing list
specs at lists.openid.net
http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-specs

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[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

I don't either.

One of my contemporaries at Oxford just became Prime Minister. I doubt
he would have been much better or worse if he was five years younger
or fifteen years older.

Post by David Recordon
I don't see what age has anything to do with technical discussions (which is
what this list is meant for).
You know something, "James A Michener" once said "All men above forty are
stupid". Let me admit that I turned 50 in the month of march 2010.
How old are you "Phillip Hallam-Baker"?

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
To me the reason the problem goes beyond simply authentication +
attributes is that we are providing a resolution mechanism for Web
'principals' identified through consistent, machine readable, human
friendly identifiers.
So 'Phillip Hallam-Baker' is not a useful identifier in this case as
even though this example is unique, the class of identifiers it is a
member of are not unique and thus not useful as machine readable
identifiers. Contrawise any identifier of the form '=292rj239e!' might
be machine readable in the right circumstances but certainly isn't
human friendly.
A principal here is most often going to be a Web User but could in
certain circumstances be a computer process or agent running on a
machine or could be some abstract corporate entity.
A principal may be an individual or may be an individual acting in a
specific role. So fred at gmail.com and fred at google.com might be the
exact same person but respond differently due to the fact that in one
role he may be acting in a corporate capacity.
A principal might even by a physical location such as a building.
malden#friendlies.com might be the Friendlies restaurant at Malden.
* Authenticating an interaction with the principal
? * An email message
? * A log in attempt
? * A permission that has been granted by Principal A to Principal B
* Initiating an interaction with the principal
? * An email message
? * An instant message
* Making a reference to the principal
? * Asserting that the principal initiated a communication
? * Asserting that the principal has a property
? * Asserting that principal A is the source of assertion B
concerning principal C
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 11:48 AM, SitG Admin

Post by SitG Admin

Post by Phillip Hallam-Baker
My view is that we should stop talking about 'identity' all together.
We should instead define the range of problems we want to solve as use
cases and go solve them. Identity is too much of an abstraction, it
can stand for anything.

+1 to targeting problems rather than ideals (at that layer).
The abstraction (of identity) is this community's strength and weakness; it
names the Purpose that brings everyone together, and it calls in people from
all over who may be able to contribute something. This concentration of
diverse ideas, though, doesn't create a single harmonious overlap of equally
distributed strength; there are outliers, ideas that aren't shared much by
others here. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.
To restate this in a slightly different way, it's a popularity contest: none
of us can decide what idea will see the most adoption, since none of us can
make those decisions for everyone else. Nearly any idea is probably going to
be seen as a bad one by *some* person in the group (Santosh helps make
statistics come *true*!), and we should each be prepared to occasionally
bite the bullet and accept that it's *our* turn to be left out in the cold.
(Then leave our unpopular ideas behind and come in for a warm meal and
whatever work has got so many members of the community in the commons
house.)
-Shade

--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
_______________________________________________
specs mailing list
specs at lists.openid.net
http://lists.openid.net/mailman/listinfo/openid-specs

--
http://hi.im/santosh
_______________________________________________
specs mailing list
specs at lists.openid.net
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