Subject: [dix] Yadis 1.0

From: Johannes Ernst <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:30:07 -0800

[When asking for feedback on this from some of the Yadis folks, a  
number of people wanted to "sign up" to it ... their signatures are  
below... this is by no means an exhaustive list ... all errors are  
mine, of course.]

Last October, Six Apart and NetMesh announced the Yadis project, an  
open community and protocol standard for making light-weight identity  
systems interoperable, starting with OpenID and LID. The i-names  
community (on the OASIS XRI standards track) joined immediately  
because they share much of the same vision, and the community has  
steadily grown since.

As many on this mailing list are certainly aware already, the Yadis  
community has recently produced Yadis 1.0, a very simple but also  
very powerful specification that accomplishes this. (download from  
http://yadis.org/ )

So far there are about half dozen Yadis different implementations in  
a variety of languages from a variety of vendors, most of them open- 
source software. Some of the more visible sites that implement Yadis  
and one or more of the underling identity technologies (such as  
OpenID and LID):
   * livejournal.com
   * myopenid.com
   * schtuff.com
   * mylid.net

There are many others, and this does not count sites that haven't  
upgraded to Yadis yet from OpenID or LID.

It's a bit difficult to estimate how many Yadis/OpenID/LID/i-name- 
enabled identities are on-line, because Yadis is fully decentralized,  
but one number that has been given is about 15,000,000.

I've been asked repeatedly how I think Yadis and any new IETF effort  
could and should relate. On one hand, there is certainly no lack of  
existing identity technologies. On the other hand, many good  
arguments have been made why any one of them does not apply to all  
scenarios. From our perspective, the most valuable effort would be to  
try to simplify and to bring them closer together, leveraging each  
other's work, instead of adding to the fragmentation that exists  
already by adding another incompatible protocol, whatever its merits.  
On the other hand, the IETF is probably better positioned to do work  
of that kind than many other identity standards organizations.

So I'd like to provide the following input for the upcoming BOF:

1) Some information:
the Yadis 1.0 specification, and the underlying OpenID and LID  
specifications. As a minimum, people contemplating a new IETF effort  
should be aware of these.

2) A question:
do attendees prefer to add a new identity specification to the ever- 
growing list of identity specifications, or focus on their energies  
on simplifying and integrating what's there already?

3) An offer: to be aware of, and potentially get involved, with the  
Yadis community. See http://yadis.org/

Best regards,

Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.

Larry Drebes
JanRain Inc.

David Recordon
LiveJournal
Six Apart, Ltd.

Kristopher Tate
BlueBridge Inc

Drummond Reed
Cordance Corp.

Scott Kveton
Jason McKerr
Open Source Labs - Oregon State

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