WebID-ISSUE-53: WebID and OpenId [liaison with other groups]

WebID-ISSUE-53: WebID and OpenId [liaison with other groups]

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/track/issues/53

Raised by: Henry Story
On product: liaison with other groups

There are a number of ways in which OpenId and WebID can work together. 

One reason OpenID will be needed for a while is that many browsers, especially on cell phones do not have good, if any, client certificate support. There  OpenID remains the way to connect. As it happens OpenID could work very well in a WebID system. That is the OpenId home page can be the WebID profile. Or at least both could be clearly linked for example using the foaf:openid relation. 

This also indicates how one could make OpenID more RESTful. The attribute exchange spec need be thought only has a hackish workaround for a linked data solution. The OpenId home Page, WebID profile page could link to access controlled representations of lists of friends that are much richer than any attribute exchange protocol could ever be.

There is also another way in which both can work together. A lot of sites have invested in OpenId, and so there are a lot of places where one can use those to log in. It is relatively easy to create an WebID to OpenId proxy as has been demonstrated for a while by the http://openid4.me/ web site. This will allow WebID enabled users to log into OpenID enabled sites without needing to sign up and keep their data synchronised with a new service.

There may be other ways for the protocols to work together.

Received on Tuesday, 15 March 2011 09:55:08 UTC