There’s a new entry on the WordPress.com FAQ today: What is OpenID? The answer is that it’s “an open standard that lets you sign in to other sites on the Web using your WordPress.com account.”
In other words, WordPress.com is an OpenID producer. As the Jyte user who claimed that WordPress should support OpenID, I have to hail this as a step in an excellent direction.
I hope that it won’t be the only step. A second and even more welcome step would be WordPress.com becoming an OpenID consumer. That would mean that WordPress.com would accept (with the appropriate caution) OpenIDs at login.
Some specific examples might help. http://changingway.org/ is now an OpenID. This illustrates that: an OpenID is a URI; and that WordPress.com domain mapping applies (that URI maps to changinway.wordpress.com). http://claimid.com/andwat is also an OpenID. claimID is an example of a service that is both a producer and a consumer of OpenIDs.
What problems we’re having do you think accepting OpenIDs would solve?
Matt,
I’ll answer quickly now, and maybe expand into a post later.
Suppose I already have an OpenID (at, for example, claimid.com) and want to keep that as my online identity. Now I hear about this great site called WordPress.com. I’d like to blog there, using my OpenID, rather than having to get a new username and password.
More generally, there’s no point in having an OpenID, or in producing OpenIDs, unless the web services I want are OpenId consumers. So web services being OpenID consumers is a good thing. WP.com is a web service. There for, WP.com as an OpenID consumer would be a good thing.
I’m sure others will try to convince you that WP.com should be an OpenID consumer, and that some of them will argue better than I just have…
Not to mention that I’d like my LiveJournal friends to be able and come comment with a set identity without a WordPress.com account.
(Hint: OpenID consuming for comments. Start there and work up.)