On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 7:11 PM, Serge Wroclawski <emac...@gmail.com> wrote: > I think the conversation is really two different questions. > > First is the original question about OpenID in the context of OSM and > the other is about OpenID support generally. > > I think part of the feeling for a need for OpenID in OSM is about the > fact that for several of our services, authentication isn't unified. > That is the wiki credentials don't map to the OSM API credentials. > help.osm does though. It's confusing.
i might be missing the point here, but are you suggesting that OSM would be an openID provider, consumer or both? i had thought that the discussion was limited to being an openID consumer - i'm not sure we'd want to be a provider, with all that it entails. > The second issue is OpenID support in general. > > MHO on the issue is that while it might seem that OpenID support is > great and widely useful, I think there are a number of implementation > issues and concerns which are really hard to overcome. > > For example, how does one handle OpenID with an API? This has been > discussed in other contexts, and unfortunately there's no good single > answer. my understanding is that openID would be usable on the website to generate an OAuth token, which would then be used to access the API. this seems like a good enough solution to me, but i could be missing something. > I personally believe OpenID is a great idea, but as Tom and others > point out, the devil's in the details. > > OTOH the former issue, of a unified authentication mechanism- that's > not technically hard (for the most part)- that's just a lot of work > and a lot of disruption to the community while the transition takes > place. the devil's in the details and the SMOP. for instance, case sensitivity of usernames, allowable characters, length and other conditions. iirc, this wasn't a big deal when the wiki was set up, and many people signed up with the same username. but since then things have drifted a little bit (including the slightly inadvertent switch to case-sensitive usernames for the main site) and it seems like way more trouble than it's worth to transition now. cheers, matt > That is, I'm sure the technical team knows how to solve it, but as > someone whose completed a user authentication merge, I can tell you > that it's painful. It's especially painful on something like a wiki, > where not only must a user remapping take place, but that user mapping > must be applied to each and every page. > > I think for new services (like help), we've solved the issue, but we > may have to either accept the pain of the current situation for the > wiki, or get buy in from the community for the disruption any change > would cause. > > - Serge > > _______________________________________________ > dev mailing list > dev@openstreetmap.org > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev > _______________________________________________ dev mailing list dev@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
