Some months ago it was big news for OpenID. Yahoo was the first big player to announce the YahooID system as a valid OpenID provider, a crucial step that brought some long desired support from major players to the movement. Some weeks ago, Microsoft did the same with their Live accounts, and Google could only follow.
Awesome, right? Well, no. In fact, all that these companies are doing is marketing OpenID as one of those features that everyone claps at, but few stop to realize it means nothing to the movement.
Let's think. Although I already had an OpenID at myopenid.net, I now have my GoogleID has an OpenID, great. Where can I sign in with it? Surely at Flickr from Yahoo, which is an OpenID supporter, right? Actually, no. Well, perhaps on Live Maps this OpenID may be useful. Wrong again. So, what does it mean to me, the OpenID user, to have so many major companies endorsing the system? Zero.
Please, stop trying to turn every existing ID into an OpenID, what we want is not that. We end up having all our previous ID's being all valid OpenIDs, for usage on the same all small sites. Start giving some utility to the feature you're giving us!
Finally I hearkened to the call of the revolution and decided to join OpenID, thus creating my online identity, which I actually delegated to this website.
Now, I'll be able to register and sign in web services and platforms with just a link that "is" my online identity, not having to type all over again usernames and passwords for an infinite number of sites. Great.
Note: If even with my little introduction this openid stuff is just "chinese" to you, you'll find plenty of information on the official website and also if, for you, portuguese is not "chinese", this guide done by Alcides Fonseca will be pretty useful.
But now what? Where are the sites which I can join by such method?
Truth is, there aren't many... but the technology is promising, so we as developers can only help it, not really by using the system, but by creating websites that support it.
So one of the features this blog might have in the future is OpenID enabled for the comments, which I'll study to implement. If you have a wordpress blog, you can do the same easier and even more by installing the wp-openid plugin.
Now, I'll be able to register and sign in web services and platforms with just a link that "is" my online identity, not having to type all over again usernames and passwords for an infinite number of sites. Great.
Note: If even with my little introduction this openid stuff is just "chinese" to you, you'll find plenty of information on the official website and also if, for you, portuguese is not "chinese", this guide done by Alcides Fonseca will be pretty useful.
But now what? Where are the sites which I can join by such method?
Truth is, there aren't many... but the technology is promising, so we as developers can only help it, not really by using the system, but by creating websites that support it.
So one of the features this blog might have in the future is OpenID enabled for the comments, which I'll study to implement. If you have a wordpress blog, you can do the same easier and even more by installing the wp-openid plugin.
Actually, with all the late buzz about this technology, it was quite difficult not to give attention to it, mainly given the news about Yahoo, which turned out to be an OpenID provider and advertised its new feature.
But actually, what's so good in this news? Of course it's great to have a giant of the web being an openid provider but, the other feature of openid, the one which actually matters to those who already were on the bandwagon before Yahoo jumped in, which is the ability to sign in the services of Yahoo with OpenID, is not there just because they made it only possible with Yahoo as a provider. For me this is not OpenID, this is the same closed system that has always been around and I simply can't find any good in it for the ones that chose not Yahoo as their openid provider.
If all the webservices were like Yahoo, we would better be as we were when there was no OpenID.
But actually, what's so good in this news? Of course it's great to have a giant of the web being an openid provider but, the other feature of openid, the one which actually matters to those who already were on the bandwagon before Yahoo jumped in, which is the ability to sign in the services of Yahoo with OpenID, is not there just because they made it only possible with Yahoo as a provider. For me this is not OpenID, this is the same closed system that has always been around and I simply can't find any good in it for the ones that chose not Yahoo as their openid provider.
If all the webservices were like Yahoo, we would better be as we were when there was no OpenID.