Slashdot Mirror
Liberty Alliance Having Problems
torre writes "This article would suggest that there seems to be some chaos in the Liberty Alliance fight against Passport. Between Sun's Jonathan Schwartz claiming defeat to Microsoft as it has the market tightly controlled with the help of windows to Novell's Justin Taylor who says that Microsoft's Passport has got nothing to offer when it comes to the enterprise. Should be interesting to see how things pan out."
Umm... did you think this over, really seriously? I was a user of DigitalMe, and it made my Internet life a helluva easier. I could securely log into all of my services without having to know more than one password by heart. I could personalize most of those services, using just a browser and my account at DigitalMe. I had some messaging and e-mail options at disposal just as an added benefit. I all worked together. (Unfortunately, Novell discontinued the service, but that's their old illness: got a lot of cool technology, but incapable of making profit outta it.)
Nonetheless, I can clearly see the advantages the industry and private individuals would have from Liberty alliance's efforts. Note that I didn't even mention the B2B features that the Liberty Alliance is working on.
Sigged!
...stories like these were properly labeled as "MS Troll" instead of "Technology", that way I could filter them out.
The article basically says "We can't get into Passport's market share because MS forced people to sign up." That's a fair statement except for one minor detail: Massive numbers of people aren't running around saying "I need a single log-in point across multiple domains!".
If the demand's not there, bleating about MS beating you isn't going to make it better. Frankly, I think the only reason this article made it to Slashdot is that juicy little line about MS "forcing" people to sign up with Passport.
I can't be the only one who'd like to filter these stupid articles.
As a browser plugin ? That way the person decides who can access their information ? The keys, credit card and personal information/etc. are stored in an encrypted file on the machine and only those with permission can get at the information ? It would eliminate the need for a hugemungous server (run by an evil corporation) and this way it would be pretty simple to access the information (with some authentication of course) and not need to pay an arm and a left testicle to an Evil Corporation..
UPS Sucks
I'd have to agree - I've never used it, other than signing into an old hotmail account. Microsoft may force me to sign up, but that doesn't mean I'll use it. That doesn't mean that I'll use liberty alliance or whatever it is called.
I seem to remember microsoft trying this with microsoft wallet for storing all of your credit card information. That never flew, and I doubt that passport will really be such a big thing. Personally I like having everything seperate, so in case somehow it gets broken into/cracked, I'll only be vulnerable at one website/domain. I try to keep seperate passwords for security, and keep things divided for more protection.
I can log into my services securely too, and know only one password. It's quite easy.
:P
Set all of your passwords to be the same.
The only reason that Passport is useful is because it tries to dip its finger into a lot of pies at the same time. The end result is that corporations find out a lot more about your surfing/buying/playing habits than they otherwise would. In other words, it's *not* useful to the end user - it's useful to the service providers.
My browser (Mozilla) stores my passwords. Don't see why I need a network-based service, controlled by someone else, subject to snooping, stealing, or worse, when the browser on a PC I control will do the trick.
sulli
RTFJ.
Well that was a refreshingly content-free article, allow me to summarize:
Sun: Windows is better at whatever Liberty/Passport does
Novell: Maybe in the home market, but we do whatever Liberty/Passport does much better in the Enterprise!
Netegrity: Maybe Microsoft does whatever Liberty/Passport does better on Windows, but the true value is doing that cross-platform and cross-domain!
I still don't see how any of this is more than a niche market. Yes, there is a need in large enterprises for single sign-on, but that's largely a Fortune 100 issue, so no huge market there. For smaller companies, it's far cheaper to staff a helpdesk than it is to do an enterprise single-sign-on implementation. Yes, home-users have to manage a lot of userids and passwords too, but integrated browser password functions cover the 90% of people who don't move from their base computer. So for the home as well it's a niche function.
The only value I see is the value of Microsoft or AOL with extending their MSN or AOL login to new functions and thereby making it more "sticky", giving users an effective barrier to leaving their service. To me, that's really all this posturing is about.
Also, I fail to see why my cell-phone and my SSH session need to share a password.
P.S. Justin Taylor is a big geek. 8-)
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
:s/correct all the mistakes they made in/make more money on
Six sick
The AOL-Sun-Netscape alliance and the other charter members definately have the ability to push Liberty, but perhaps not the will.
If they wanted to AOL, Netscape, Mastercard, Visa and American Express could deliver a *staggering* amount of particpants. This would dwarf the several million Microsoft passport holders overnight.
I think that the main problem here with Sun's technical leadership is that it's too busy trying to work out what it does for a business to worry about taking on Microsoft in yet another arena.
Another reason is that the when you're a holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Sun sees Liberty as a battle with Microsoft, Novell sees it as glorified LDAP server, while the credit card and mobile phone companies see it as a targeted advertsing and aggregation tool.
The conflict is being caused by each charter member having a different vision of what Liberty actually *is*.