Re: [DotGNU]Bending the twig of .NET (large -- sorry)

[Ron Burk]

Hi Matthew,

> The big thing that people would be better off doing though is to not use 
> an apache module.

Yeah; I mostly said "Apache module" to give some concreteness
to the idea; I'm more interested in how easy it is for the
community of webmasters and designers (and real users
on the client side) to use than the exact method of implementation.
I'm sure there's enough talent available to come up with
much better implementations than I can think of :-). For example,
I think one of the security experts already has an (free? open source?)
encrypted local database program for storing web logon information;
that could be an important part of the client-side software that
might be pretty much usable as-is. Despite being conceptually
simple, there's probably room for a lot of creative ideas.

> There is another problem though.  One thing that you have to realize about
> passport and .NET is that it doesn't always use a web browser.  You could
> write application X, that makes use of passport.  This is where the
> problem with either the Apache module, or the above instance comes in, and
> this is why we are trying to develop a better alternative.

That's pretty much exactly the 80% of Passport that's currently
unimportant, AFAIK. I do not know of any real users using such
facilities, nor do I think most people will be using them during
the next 12 months. I see the more simple single login standard
as away to quickly establish mindshare with web designers and
real users, mindshare that would make them much more willing
to learn about a more complex offering that would likely have to
be delivered much later. I understand the future threat of that
other 80%, but if I have to take on a 300lb bully, I would rather
kick him in the knee first and only trade punches after the initial low blow
has proven successful. If a competing product steals the market
for the 20% of Passport's functionality that real people use
today, I believe that would represent a serious threat to
their ability to sell the more grandiose schemes that are
currently in the works, and provide much-needed credibility
for non-Microsoft alternative.

Thanks for your comments!
(Hey! KU! I went there!)
Ron Burk
Windows Developer's Journal, www.wdj.com