Jiri’s Notepad

Liberty outlines Phase 2 of their spec development:

“Phase 2 of the Liberty Alliance specifications, which are expected in mid-2003, will enhance Liberty’s Identity Federation Framework and introduce the Liberty Alliance’s Identity Web Services Framework (ID-WSF). This Web Services Framework outlines the technical components necessary to build interoperable identity-based web services that meet specific business needs and also protect the privacy and security of users’ shared information.

Phase 2 also includes the introduction of Liberty Alliance Identity Services Interface Specifications (ID-SIS), a collection of specifications built on the Liberty Identity Web Services Framework. These specifications will provide a standard way for companies to build interoperable services like registration profiles, contact books, or calendar, geo-location or alert services. The first service interface specification to be introduced is the ID-Personal Profile, which will define a basic profile template that can be used to build a registration service.” [Liberty Alliance through DIDW Roundtable]

I think there is small chance of Liberty making a big difference before it becomes a part of core technology stacks of major vendors like MS, Oracle, IBM, Sun and major packaged software.

And I don’t see much interest from these coreners. Microsoft is slowly becoming aware that they are not the only software vendor in the world. Oracle applications support for LDAP is still lukewarm even after 2 years of talking about it, IBM do have quite a few pieces of identity software, but when I asked them about Liberty some time ago, they weren’t able to say anything about their plans in this area. So it seems that at this moment with the exception of Sun, none of the companies named above have any concrete plans to support SAML or Liberty in their platforms.

Of course, besides platform vendors there is a resonable amount of application software vendors; all SAPs and Siebels of this world. But I think it’s safe to assume that they are even more self-obsessed than MS - most of them probably still believe that there are no other applications in the universe other than theirs.

So it is quite clear that unless Liberty becomes part of the standard software packages and platforms, its deployments will neccessarily be one-off and cost of tying something like Liberty gateway to the rest of corporate infrastructure will not be small. Which in turn will affect uptake. Classic instance of crossing the chasm, I guess