We used to use that line when we referred to standards.

Wishing that the world would coalesce around a single standard:

a) ignores the fact that there is Microsoft. So choose your category wisely and stay under the radar, as Microsoft - no matter what - will come up with their own thing. In the case of subscription formats - they actually PRECEDED RSS with something called CDF. But since it failed, that gave Dave Winer an opportunity of getting RSS going “user the radar” until it was too late for Microsoft to stop him.

b) assuming that there will ever be a single digital identity standard - is wrong. Kim Cameron raps out his beliefs - which he calls “The Fifth Law of Identity”. I totally agree with Kim that a meta-identity format is needed to brdge and connect together all of these disparate systems.

c) is rather naive and clearly sees the digital identity space as one thing. It’s not. What digital identity is to the FOAF nerds or Tantek Celik’s XFN cult is completely different than how the i-names folks or Sxip Network sees it. And I haven’t even brought up the enterprise wonks - lile PingID. Or the god head Craig Burton or his nemisis Kim Cameron. We all see this space as something completely different.

So - by definition - we (at best) can at least hope for some sort of meta-standard.

God bless the meta-directory gods.

UPDATE: Craig Burton raps it our succinctly - like only he can.

The law of pluralism is contrary to the laws of customer control. Let’s be clear, the law of pluralism requires operating system independence–by definition. This means the Microsoft Identity Archtiect is calling for a system that is not necissarily Windows centric by design. This–of course–is the only way such a system can really work–but consider the implications.

A cross platfrom identity metasystem sun-spot hot and–with the other laws being discussed here–changes everything.

[Craig Burton: logs, links, life, and lexicon]

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