OK – my position must seem supercilious – for Craig says:
I didn't miss the point. I nailed it. Passport was never–at least not until now–billed as an experiment. Passport was positioned as the future of Identity infrastructure. This so frightened the industry that a hasty alternative was financed and brought to life–behold–the Liberty Alliance.
Gee – Was I just rewriting history? Airbrush and all? Let me be more specific. I'm not talking about ‘billing’.
It was clear to me from day one that Passport was not going to become a universal identity system. But though I expressed my opinions inside Microsoft, I was not directly involved in the Passport or Hailstorm initiatives. In an innovative environment, you often have to go with the flow and let passionate people test their ideas. The testing includes – as you know only too well – positioning. Sometimes passionate people will be right, and sometimes they'll be wrong.
So, I saw Passport as an experiment.
What is incredible is that others in the industry looked at all of this and – being as ignorant of the Third Law as were the very proponents of Passport – they had no understanding that objective factors would stem the tide of Passport for generalized identity purposes.
It is said that this is what gave rise to Liberty. I cede to your analysis here – though I know some of the good people involved and that there were some positive reasons for people to come together as well as negative ones.
