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The Liberty Alliance Grows Again
sempf writes "The Liberty Alliance, a Sun-backed open-specification alternative to the Microsoft platform's Passport system, has added two very powerful members, Oracle and Intel. Now over 150 members, one wonders at the future of a world where we have two single sign-on systems. With the three big IM platforms joining forces, is the identity standard of the world going to be Microsoft, or Sun? Is this going to be the next Browser War?"
No. There won't be a war because no one wants it. MSN's passport has been around for a long time now and barely anyone uses it.
It's called Mac OS X's Keychain.
Who cares what company has the new identification standard? I'd rather keep my multiple passwords than rely on one breach of one system to lose my entire online life. I'd assume most geeks are the same and I've met some pretty paranoid non-geeks out there about having any information on the web. So unless we really believe that the information we need to have to exist in our online world won't be available outside of the authentication standards of a few companies, we have nothing to worry about.
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
I'll believe there's a "sign-on war" the day Ebay locks people out for not having a passport/liberty alliance account. (Currently they support Passport+their own system.)
Honestly, site-specific sign-on systems are easy to develop and most e-tailers have a powerful motive to offer their customers as many choices as possible. This is stark contrast to the one-or-the-other image a "war" connotes.
Go somewhere random
How universal can any kind of "identity system" be before it gets scary and/or illegal? (Illegal in countries with data protection laws anyway.)
Nokia is on board with this, and as more and more of my personal information gets concentrated on my phone I'll probably end up using it.
Eventually we'll probably all have a digital "passport" of some kind - and much better this way than the Microsoft way - but it's still a bit creepy.
This Like That - fun with words!
With, as you point out, over 150 member companies the Liberty Alliance is scarcely just "Sun".
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
...Single sign-on outside the corporate network (aka, the Internet at large) is a problem that doesn't need much solving..
..and both MS and Sun will fail at solving a problem that doesn't really need solving.
A better approach would be for either MS or Sun to develop multi-langauge, multi-platform products that will help web developers implement standard password requirements, username/password schemes, etc.
Forcing a lame implementation of bad technology isn't going to work.
... IM providers are NOT joining forces ... IM convergence would mean ...
Note that I did NOT say IM convergence. I DID say they are joining forces. They are. Despite all of the vitrol, reality has forced them to hold hands and play nice. I'm sure the ability to send a message from one platform to another using a common P2P platform is not far off, despite your claims.
How exactly is Google making a gMail messenger any different from MSN mesenger, or Yahoo messenger? All great brands, all good technology. Will it be better because you like Google more? Don't get me wrong, I like Google too, but how will a fourth standard make it any better?
/usr/bin/grep -i -E meaning life.txt