OpenID is a very good idea.
Most of us have to remember far too many usernames and passwords for far too many insufficiently important web sites. This is particularly true now that so many people have blogs (and so many of them insist on logging on in order to avoid comment spam). Even if we always use the same username and password it is a pain to have to register each and every time. This means that we are less likely to comment on a blog, for example, if it requires registration.
OpenID is a solution to this problem. It allows you to use a single online identity across many web sites. As an example, you can use an OpenID from any site that complies with the OpenID standard to login to post comments on LiveJournal. Your details secure because you don’t actually give your password to LiveJournal to login to. Instead, once you enter your OpenID on the site, it generates a link back to your own OpenID site (for the sake of argument let’s assume it’s your blog). Your blog will then check that you are logged in (and prompt you to log in, if not). It will then ask if you are happy to trust the referring site (LiveJournal) and, if so, will send a message back confirming your identity.
In summary your registration details are kept secure and not shared with anyone – but you do get a single identity that you can take with you when you visit different web sites. You can even associate an avatar with your OpenID which can be used on those web sites.
So whilst it is a good thing, why is almost no-one using it? The main problem, as always, is lack of support. LiveJournal, as far as I’m aware, is the only major public site supporting OpenID. And the support in self-hosting blog software packages is pretty primitive too. My own efforts getting it to work with WordPress have proved frustrating.
After spending many hours analysing lines of code (and Apache access logs) I finally managed to get Singpolyma’s OpenID plugin for WordPress to work as an OpenID server. Frustratingly it came down to the value of a single parameter – see my comment on Singpolyma’s blog if you’re interested.
I’ve now posted my first comment on another site (Bonnie’s LiveJournal) using OpenID, So now that’s working okay, I’ll have to look to modifying K2 to support using OpenID for comments on this blog.
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