openid.consumer tag

[Lukas Leander Rosenstock]

At first glance a great idea. However, why should someone download a 
plugin just to enter his/her identity URL? The login process itself, as 
it is done on a website from the server (and can be anything from 
silent, a <form> to HTTP auth.) so as long as this is not standardized 
it won't save to much time. Browser integration, hmm, if browsers don't 
even understand all these nice links like "glossary", "help", "next" 
etc. from HTML 2.0 why should they do it with openid.consumer? Okay, 
Firefox displays an RSS icon, so when OpenID has become as popular as 
RSS it might happen, yes. Proposing such a tag as you've given here is 
okay, but it is not all for it, one point I'm thinking about is what the 
user agent should send as return_url, the current webpage or something 
else (e.g. the webpage with parameters)? Just think about it again.

Anas M. Nebuchadnezzar XXXVII wrote:

> I've been doing some thinging, and I cam up with an idea that I wanted 
> to share with you to see what you all think. My idea is, every site 
> that supports openid authentication should add an extra link tag in 
> the header pointing to it's openid consumer url. This would have the 
> benefit of assisting in the autodiscovery of openid-enabled sites as 
> well as makeing possible to write browser plugins/extensions that work 
> with that information.
>
> Imagine going to www.livejournal.com and seeing a little openid icon 
> show up on the bottom of the window. If you click on the icon, you get 
> the options: "log in with {stored identity}" or "log in with other". 
> Choosing either option would automatically send a login request to 
> that sites consumer url.
>
> This will make things a lot easier when we start to see more sites 
> that accept openid logins. If the user doesn't have any such plugin, 
> then nothing happens. There's just another link tag in the header, but 
> if they _do_ have a plugin installed then it will save them time in 
> logging in to the site. (Livejournal doesn't have an openid login box 
> on every page)
>
> So, if you have a site that consumes openid's, then go ahead and put 
> this tag on your site now, and if we get enough people to do it, then 
> we may be able to start doing something with it.
>
> This wouldn't really needed to be added to the spec. It doesn't really 
> change the way anything works already, it's just an optional tag that 
> sites can add.
>
> Let me know what you think. Any ideas, or reasons why this wouldn't work?
>
> Example:
> <link rel="openid.consumer" 
> href="http://www.kronkltd.net/wp/wp-content/plugins/openid.php" />
>
> Daniel E. Renfer
> openid: http://kronkltd.net/
>