Here's what Editor David Recordon has to say:
So with the recent OpenID news, I have to say that I'm quite excited! Convergence isn't new for OpenID, rather continues to show how it is a great technology to innovate around. This isn't about one technology swallowing another, it is about true cooperation, collaboration, and ultimately convergence.At the first Internet Identity Workshop in 2005, Brad Fitzpatrick, Johannes Ernst, and I collaborated with the XRI guys and jointly developed Yadis. Suffice it to say, the technology developed by the community in Yadis is so powerful that it is now being built into the standard XRI Resolution spec at OASIS. Over this last summer there was further convergence with the XRI community, now allowing the OpenID Authentication 2.0 spec to support both URLs and XRIs as identifier formats. In August Sxip joined forces, which has caused the OpenID technology to continue to improve and has built the community to be even stronger.
Now today, we get to announce that Microsoft too has decided to collaborate with the OpenID community. I've known Kim Cameron and Mike Jones for about two years now and despite anything you may say about Microsoft, these guys continue to push for the best and engage the wider user-centric identity community in a very positive light. I'm personally really excited to be working with them, and others, in further developing the Assertion Quality Extension so that OpenID can be used within a wider range of products (including those from Microsoft). So welcome Kim and Mike, I hope to see you on the mailing lists shortly!