Identity Commons Sessions Summary (June 21, 2006)

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

There were two sessions on Identity Commons on the Open Space day (June 21, 2006) at the Identity Mashup at the MIT Media Lab last week. The first session was an open status meeting for the community at large. We described Identity Commons‘s purpose, told the history of the organization, then explained how the organization could serve the community today and why the existing organizational structure wasn’t adequate. We then announced that the current trustees had authorized a brand transfer, assuming that the new organization adopted purposes and principles consistent with the current purposes and principles.    (KQL)

Both sessions were well-attended, and there were a number of new faces. Interest in participation seemed strong.    (KQM)

In brief:    (KQN)

  • There are a number of grassroots community projects that involve multiple stakeholders and that are happening independently of any centralized direction.    (KQO)
  • These decentralized efforts could all benefit from some shared infrastructure, which could be as simple as a shared, neutral brand (i.e. “Identity Commons“) or as complicated as a set of rules that help ensure fair participation and governance among multiple parties.    (KQP)
  • Our strategy is to build an organization organically that addresses the needs of these different community projects.    (KQQ)

Current projects/interests (and stewards) include:    (KQR)

These projects could benefit from things like:    (KR1)

  • Shared name. The importance of this can’t be understated. It demonstrates solidarity, implicit community cooperation, which is particularly important for this community. There’s also an implicit reputation (hopefully positive) associated with a shared name that encourages participation in the community.    (KR2)
  • Bank account. Several of these projects need a bank account. A great example of this are the various community gatherings, which need the ability to accept registrations and spend money on things like space rental and food.    (KR3)
  • Online community space. Many of these groups are already using mailing lists and Wikis for discussion and group authoring. It would simplify things for new groups if these resources were easily available to those who wanted them. It would also benefit the community at large if some of these groups had their discussions on a shared space as opposed to separate silos.    (KR4)
  • Governance and process. Some fundamental guidelines can help all groups facilitate cooperation and participation from all stakeholders.    (KR5)

Eventually, what we’re currently calling “Identity Commons 2.0” will need:    (KR6)

  • legal entity w/ bylaws and membership criteria    (KR7)
  • financial model    (KR8)
  • intellectual property agreement (potentially using Apache Software Foundation as a model)    (KR9)

Our strategy for addressing these needs is to attack the low-hanging fruit first and to let the projects drive the priorities of the organization. We will start by forming an organizational working group consisting of the stewards of each of the working groups described above as well as anyone else from the community who wants to join. Its first meeting is a teleconference tentatively scheduled for next Thursday, July 6 at 9am PT, pending confirmation from the different stewards. (Details to be announced on the community mailing list.)    (KRA)

Organizational policy should be as lightweight as possible, giving each working group the option of customizing them to fit their needs.    (KRB)

We will use the community mailing list for discussion. We will also setup a Wiki, leveraging the work Jon Ramer did for Identity Mashup. We will look into merging some of the other Wikis, such as Identity Gang, into this new Wiki.    (KRC)

Who will decide what working groups form or what collaborative tools we’ll use? In general, if someone wants to propose something that’s consistent with the purposes and principles, the answer is “yes” — provided someone is going to steward the proposal.    (KRD)

Free Identity!

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

A suggestion for Jimmy Wales‘s list of things that need to be free: Free identity!    (JNG)

“Free” in this case has a different meaning than it does than it does with the other items on Jimbo’s list. We need to free our digital identities from the organizational silos that currently collect and control information about ourselves. I am not suggesting that all digital identities fall under an open content license; I’m saying that the individual should have the ability to decide who has access to his or her digital identity and what they’re allowed to do with it.    (JNH)

Why is this important? Privacy is the obvious and most important reason. A secondary reason is that free, or at least mobile identities are a prerequisite for Jimbo’s tenth item: Free communities! It’s not enough to be able to migrate content from one community to another if you can’t also migrate people’s identities as well.    (JNI)

How can we free identities? Technically, it’s not that’s hard, and there are already several proposed specs and implementations, all of which support some notion of Single Sign-On and profile sharing with individual control. Personally, I’m partial to the Identity Commons approach with i-names, where identifiers are globally resolvable, information is distributed, and the notion of contracts built into the data structure. In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we agree on an interoperable technical specification for identity. Fortunately, many of the folks in this space are already working on collaborating, thanks to the efforts of Owen Davis, Kim Cameron, Paul Trevithick, Doc Searls, and many others. These people have taken to calling themselves the “Identity Gang.”    (JNJ)

The social questions are the hard ones. What does it really mean to control our identities? What should the social and legal agreements between individuals and organizations look like? If I give my business card to someone, what’s the implicit contract associated with this action, and what would it mean to make that contract explicit?    (JNK)

These questions are hard, but they’re solvable. Unfortunately, we’re not devoting much energy towards these issues right now. Perhaps a more public exhortation for freeing identities will lead to an effort to address these social questions that equals the current effort to solve the technical ones.    (JNL)