PROPOSAL: rename Identity Provider to OpenID Provider
Dick Hardt
dick at sxip.com
Wed Oct 18 22:05:17 PDT 2006
(writing this up so that it can go in David's proposal wiki :-)
Motivation:
* Liberty specifications use the term Identity Provider (IdP) to
refer to a site that provides any kind of identity assertion about
the user, and this term has come to have that general meaning in the
market. Since OpenID IdP only asserts that a user has an OpenID, this
leads to confusion about what an OpenID IdP actually does.
* When asserting parties are introduced into the OpenID
specifications at a later time, they will also be IdPs, but will need
a different name since they are not doing what an IdP does in OpenID.
Proposal:
Rename Identity Provider to OpenID Provider in the spec
Pros:
+ clarity on what the IdP in the protocol does
+ will provide clarity in future
Cons:
- some simple search and replace needs to be done on the spec
- people in the OpenID Community are used to using the term IdP
More information about the specs
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