There has been a lot of buzz recently about OpenID. In the last couple weeks, we’ve seen announcements from Microsoft about adding OpenID support to their CardSpace identification technology and AOL adding OpenID support for all of their user accounts.
So, what is OpenID? From openidenabled.comOpenID is a URL based identity system. An OpenID identity is simply a URL, and all the OpenID specification does is provide a way to securely prove that you own that URL.Unlike most identity systems, OpenID is completely decentralized. The end-user may choose whichever server they are most comfortable with, and may even run their own if they choose.
What this means to me is that sites that support OpenID save you the hassle of managing your identity on every site that you visit. Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep all of your personal information in one place (or more) with one password to remember. When you wanted to change information, you only have to do it once. OpenID is an attempt to address this concern.
My next step is to add OpenID support to taskhack using the new Rails plugin.
add OpenID to a Rails app
The No Shit Guide To Supporting OpenID In Your Applications—Dan Webb does a great job explaining how to set up a Rails app using the ruby-openid gem
update 02/28
I have added OpenID support to taskhack. I used code from East Media:
Consumer Plugin for OpenID
