This was actually a comment I left on my last post about the v3.3 release of the OpenID plugin. It is a topic that comes up relatively often, and one in which most people are surprised when they hear my stance on it. It’s worthy of a separate discussion for those that are interested, so I’ve pulled it out into a separate post.
I’ve talked with core team about this numerous times… in fact, I spoke at WordCamp Portland and Seattle these last two weeks and talked with Matt about it. For the most part, I actually agree with him that OpenID doesn’t necessarily belong in core, at least not yet.
There’s a lot of thought being given to how WordPress can serve as your “digital hub” on the web. Right now, Automattic is playing in that space in the form of BuddyPress. Now right now, BP allows you to create another social network silo. BP installations don’t talk to each other, and there’s no way to use your account on one BP network to login to a different BP network. I talked with Mark Jaquith this weekend about my desire to see this outward facing functionality. For t