OpenID.ORG - *your thoughts* - PLEASE!!!

So it's all kicked off again. Scott has posted. Dmitry has posted. I'm to be honest starting to feel weary. Dmitry even says i have added some neat features to the site - i've probably done as much as any OpenID site to add features above and beyond the basic authentication modules - and was thinking i was doing some nice things in integrating some of the communities we have - even to demonstrate some of their talking points .... and it has taken a hell of a lot of time. I was hoping that through this people may stop worrying about my site and concentrate on the concept.

So I posted this response to Scott. I really don't feel any negative vibes toward them all despite the crap that has been said about me - probably because i have got a lot of support too and I only worry about my kids - other stuff doesn't concern me.

I want to hear from YOU though. Email me at "weblivz AT hotmail DOT com" with your thoughts.

I'm now wondering whether all the effort i have put in for things like mobile, microformats, foaf and so on has been worth anything. I have really enjoyed doing it, but this keeps coming up. Maybe it's time to sell up and get out - hard with a domain that was valubale before the OpenID concept ever came to fruition and which sits number 5 in Google - something I never intended doing... but i have too many other things in my life to worry about that to cope with people taking all the positive stuff i am trying to do and making it negative. With Google and archive.org in 20 years my kids will see all this stuff and wander what the heck i did that was so upsetting to a few people. The Microformats people said "cool". Some FOAF people said "neat". I have been working on some other ideas people may like... and it's taken me a lot of time. But this comes back again and again.

Anyway, by reply to Scott...

Let's look at this another way. It was actually useful for me to point at your site - you would never had asked me to do so otherwise. I got zero benefit from this. Remember, the original reason you asked me to do so was because people were ALREADY pointing at the .org rather than the .net - so the fact i redirected was to help you guys out. Had I not redirected I'd still be around the same place in Google - it wasn't *because* i redirected that this happened.

I am the villian to you guys for no reason other than i bought a domain name. Then you invent an idea that, had you thought it was to be as big as it is, you would have bought all domain extensions for it (i have done that with some of my ideas) and then get annoyed at ME for not handing it over.

I live in the real world where i have two young kids and a living to make somehow. So i put on some Google ads - I am now the proud owner of $8.95 this month. You guys offered me $2k - at the same time you offered a $50k bounty for applications on it. You also can also charge $100,000 for platinum membership of OpenID. You guys are also travelling around the world promoting this stuff - my last trip was 4 years ago. You all seem pretty well off by my standards. So imagine where i lose the domain name, and openid disappears and then two years later i see someone else using the OpenID.org domain for some identity system that is not the openid we know and love - perhaps it just never took off. You can't pretend to me that in that case someone hasn't made a killing on the domain name. May not happen, but that's technology.

You say "That’s stooping pretty low Steven." - man, I did that BECAUSE i didn't want people thinking my site WAS the real site. Honestly. It is to read that the openid.net is the REAL site and my is in no way affiliated.

And to say i am gleaning anything. I added mobile support, messaging, microformats and foaf (and some other stuff not yet released) to try and pull in some of the other thinking - it was to help the idea of OpenID... but you make it sound like these were already in place - as though i took some template of all the work people had done and dropped it in. I have spent countless hours working on this stuff (that's why i have trouble sleeping) - a big deal when you work full time and have two kids.

Trust me when i say i am raking nothing in because of all this. Really. I'd getting sick of all this though - maybe OpenID and all these well off sponsors, members and individuals should think together and make an offer i can't refuse. Not something I would have considered before, but i'm seriously getting frustrated by all this. But I can't really win in this. Ask around for what people think openid.org is worth - as a domain name in general and then with the OpenID concept around it - in both cases it's worth a lot as it's a cool domain. People who didn't even know there *was* and OpenID have said it's a very snappy domain. So whatever i could sell it for I won't get its real worth - i know that - espcecially if the foundation took it. But then if i sell it for a decent amount i'll be the villain of the community - i may even make Time Magazine and new releases of SpiderMan will do away with the Green Goblin and have me in its place (which may be pretty cool for my kids). It's not as though we were talking in millions of dollars - it's all the companies that are benefitting from this technology that talk in those numbers.

I don't know - anyone - please mail me at weblivz AT hotmail DOT com with your thoughts and ideas on this.