I haven’t posted about identity for a long time; no particular reason.
But if you are a participant in the evolving standard’s war around identity you must carefully listen to this Gilmore Gang session!
The rest of this post really makes zero sense if your not intimate with the strategic landscape of this standards war and you have listened to the tape.
The most important thing here in is that if you carefully listen you can see the outlines of Microsoft’s next offensive in this war. As usual you need to look hard thru the fog of war. Amazingly if you listen carefully I think I heard the rumble of trusted computing! But, their back!
It’s particularly worth modeling very carefully what Dave Winer is thinking thru out the call, particularly when he wasn’t speaking! Man he’s smart! People forget that.
It is notable that Kim’s shy nature evaporates suddenly when the going gets rough.
Shocking that it appears that Kim honestly seems to be totally unaware of how much violence Microsoft did to the internet community in the 1990s. If Kim, in the role he’s got, doesn’t know then nobody at Microsoft knows. Unbelievable.
There is a very amusing conversation about trust; almost operatic in nature. One part of the chorus singing about the issue of trusting the parties trying to set standards while the other part of the chorus is singing about trusting the validity of the library card presented upon borrowing books. It’s as if the two chorus, singing at the same time, have no idea the other guys are singing about a different topic.
There is an amazingly lame round to attempting to demand concessions from various people – as if that is a constructive way to get anywhere at the beginning of a negotiation. But in the midst of it the PingId guy makes clear that he just doesn’t care about the protocols that he’s in the market to broker federation deals. Nobody hears him; at least I don’t think anybody heard him. They also didn’t hear when he made it clear that he’s nominally in the Liberty Alliance camp because that’s were they believe the momentum is; that’s quite an endorsement given that the same bunch of guys run Digital ID world.
I was totally pleased that Doc Searls asked about momentum. That is always the question to ask about emerging standards. Where is the momentum going to break out? It’s sad that nobody was able to be clear. Momentum comes from boots on the ground, nothing else! Instead they talked about electing Microsoft king, or maybe Kim or Dick Hardt as leader. Well they didn’t quite put it that way; but that’s what they were thinking!
I just lost my previous post – if you got two, forget one of them.
Just so you don’t think I’m completely demented, let me tell you a story.
During the 90’s, when I had my own Metadirectory company called ZOOMIT, I was actually threatened with asphyxiation (in so many words) not by Microsoft but by a senior representatives of the main company complaining about Microsoft’s unsavory practices. So basically, whereas some saw the players being the big Microsoft wolf and a bunch of saintly sheep, from my point of view there were wolves and saints in a bunch of different companies….
I enjoy your blog.
Kim
Sorry if my software/site ate your attempt at post, but Kim, you are now the face of Microsoft in a very critical arena. When people interact with you they are not interacting with you, the are interacting with Microsoft. It’s your role. It’s a bit like that silly movie The Mask. To ask people to ignore the role just isn’t workable. Microsoft has a market cap of $279,080,000,000; when you speak and act people hear and see $279,080,000,000 speaking and acting. I doubt you were found guilty of abusing your monopoly market position.
Dave suggested in that tape a good first step would be an apology, but apologies demand three things. An understanding of what the misdeed was. An convincing proof that it will not happen again. A valiant attempt to to compensate those done wrong.
IE7 will send a lot of signals; as does this: http://taint.org/2005/02/15/201317a.html
Actually here’s a multi-level comment. First– it’s Gillmor Gang (as in Steve) not Gilmore Gang (as in John) though both are big names in the Computer Field (one’s quite a bit richer). Second– check out this article on John Gilmore’s fight for a different kind of identity legislation http://www.postgazette.com/pg/05058/462446.stm Thirdly, I just subscribed to your RSS feed so post more 🙂
Thanks Brendan, fixed Steve’s name. 🙂