Pushing String

David Recordon reports that VeriSign has issued a non-assertion covenant on OpenID that’s very similar to Sun’s model. This is very healthy for the OpenID developer community! I hope to see more such announcements from other players.

I see that the VeriSign language is more restrictive in one important way: it promises not to assert “claims necessary for the implementation” of OpenID. I discussed this a bit when Sun announced its covenant, and Simon Phipps went into more detail (look for his “essential claims” commentary). That said, this is definitely progress…

If you want to learn about how our Sun Identity Provider for OpenID is set up, check out Hubert Le Van Gong’s latest posts here and here. And if you’d like to hear a discussion among Don Bowen, Brandon Whichard, and myself about some of the lessons learned so far from our OpenID program, you can hear the latest Identity Management Buzz podcast here. Skype bandwidth issues contributed to some funky audio quality, sigh, but the podcast was really fun to do.

We got to talking about CD purchases and why you’d want to buy a CD nowadays, and the one I recommended was Eva Cassidy’s Eva by Heart; don’t miss it, or her Live at Blues Alley either, if you’re into female vocals that range from blues to jazz to folk to pop. She was truly amazing.

(Hmm, and why does the syllable “Con” keep coming into it? Must remember to ask Conor.) Actually, I cannot tell a lie; it’s Hubert who came up with the name Concordia, as he was riffing on Place de la Concorde when he and I were talking about project-naming. I suppose I can take credit for actually slogging all the way over to Google and typing in c-o-n… to find the marital harmony connection.

If you’re going to Burton Catalyst, you really should get to the Concordia workshop, which will be held next Tuesday. Conor describes the genesis of this project and the smart people who will be there to discuss real-world multi-protocol interop problems and what solutions they’d like to see. There really is no substitute for collecting hard data on this stuff. The event is free but you gotta register.

I, um, have to miss this must-attend event, because I’ve got a long-scheduled vacation next week. But David R. and I have been tweaking the Project Concordia wiki a bit recently, and I’ve also been trying out a matrix-y way to organize the use cases that seems to be helpful. It would be great to get feedback and more use case detail from all and sundry. If you haven’t yet joined the Concordia mailing list, you can find out how here. And remember, if you want, you can use an OpenID to log in to the wiki and add your two cents.

It’s that time again! The 2007 session of the XML Summer School hosted by CSW is being held July 22-27 in Oxford. As the Summer School website says, “Delegates with any level of knowledge will find that there is something to challenge them” and “After a hard day’s learning at the XML Summer School, we also offer a social events programme where speakers and delegates alike get to relax and experience the beautiful city of Oxford, from punting down the River Cherwell to formal dinners at some of Oxford’s most prestigious University Colleges.” What’s not to like?

It’s not too late to sign up. In fact, let me suggest a couple of ways you might be able to register on the cheap:

• You can enter a competition for the chance to win a full delegate place at the Summer School.
• You can send me email (my contact info is here) to find out a super-secret code that gives you a 10% discount on a regular registration.

Check out the curriculum to see the breadth of XML-related topics covered. This year, my track — which was expanded to two days in 2006 — has a dual focus on Web Services and Identity. I’m really pleased at the lineup of lecturers, and at the sheer volume of real-world knowledge we’ll be sharing. John Kemp (Nokia), Paul Madsen (NTT), Jeff Barr (Amazon), and Marc Hadley (Sun) have returned, and John Chelsom (managing director of CSW and headmaster of the Summer School!), Paul Downey (BT), and Rich Salz (IBM) are joining the track for the first time. And many other talented technologists (and all-around cool people) will be teaching as well.

A good time will be had by all, and we’ll leave with our brains full. Doesn’t it make you want to come along?

(My posts related to previous years’ Summer School sessions can be found here.)

Nancy Rommelmann writes about her willingness to share her recipes, and the lengths to which her great-great-aunt went to encrypt (!) and hide her own. A lot of artistry and variability are involved in the execution of baking instructions, so the story certainly isn’t over with the “source code” anyway.

Oh yeah, here she also gives her recipe for what she claims are The World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. World’s. Best. Gotta try that… If you use this recipe, let me know your results. If you create a “fork”, want to share it? (Thank goodness Rommelmann didn’t see fit to attach licensing terms.)

It’s been a cool week (or confusing, if you’re Paul). I finally finished adding notes from my IIW 2007 session to the new Project Concordia website — and to do this I logged in using an OpenID from Sun. Now that’s a science fiction double feature…