It is commonly said that OpenID was created by Brad Fitzpatrick in 2005. However, a little research reveals that openid.net existed before then.

OpenID.net was first registered on Wednesday, June 27, 2001. It was registered by David Lehn. And the earliest site preserved in the archive was the following very simple page.

As you can see, this site linked to 3 places.

The first was SourceFourge’s OpenID project site. It was David Lehn’s project. It looked like this.

Here, it clearly states what OpenID is.

OpenID is a project to research and develop a system to share information associated with a particular user/group/account/etc between sites on the Internet.

OpenID is a project to research and develop a system for sharing information associated with a particular user/group/account/etc. among sites on the Internet.

It is striking how little its purpose has changed from OpenID Connect as of 2012.

I think the 2 projects linked from www.openid.net at the time may provide clues as to how they were trying to build this system.

The first was DotGNU. This was the GNU version of the .NET Framework, so it was a development environment.

The other was XNSORG. XNSOG was the predecessor of XDIORG. Its website at the time looked like this.

Welcome to XNSORG
The XNS Public Trust Organization manages XNS, a new XML-based open platform for automated data exchange with global identity, privacy, and permission management capabilities. New! XNSORG announces the appointment of Internet veteran Bill Washburn, Ph.D. as President and Managing Director. Read the press release for details. Understanding XNS XNS, or eXtensible Name Service, is a new Internet service that lets individuals and businesses establish a global online identity and address, exchange self-updating business cards, use a single sign-on name and password, automatically exchange and synchronize common types of data, and manage the use of shared data under XNS privacy contracts. XNS works through a globally distributed network of XNS agents and agencies.Learn more: XNS In a Nutshell | How Web Agents Work: A Quick Primer | Top Ten Questions about XNS| Defining and Comparing XNS | XNS and Internet Privacy Extending XNS XNS is also a platform developers can use to create XML-based data exchange and permission management applications. XNS-based solutions are already underway in wireless communications (for managing location privacy and automated m-commerce), finance (for compliance with the U.S. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and EU Data Directive), and health care (for compliance with the U.S. HIPAA regulations). XNS has numerous other applications ranging from digital rights management and online voting to secure email and spam filtering.Learn more: Wireless Privacy Presentation | Canning Spam for Good: A White Paper on XNS Permission Filtering Introducing XNSORG XNSORG is the independent international non-profit corporation formed to govern the XNS standards and open source code base. XNSORG attempts at all times to operate by its principles of equal representation, non-discrimination, interoperability, and openness.Learn more: Top Ten Questions about XNSORG | XNS Governance: Building a Global Trust Community Getting Involved XNSORG welcomes the participation of interested members of the Internet community, both individuals and organizations. Please see the Working Groups home page or contact Bill Washburn, President and Managing Director.		About XNSORG Get Involved! XNSORG FAQs Governance + Legal Documents + Partners Press Room Privacy Policy Working Groups + Jobs About XNS In a Nutshell XNS FAQs Backgrounder Presentations White Papers + Glossary KnowledgePacks Technical References For Users Register an Agent! FAQs + Mailing Lists + Report Privacy Violation For Developers Specifications Source Code Developer Mailing Lists

XNSORG was the predecessor of today’s XDIORG (where I serve as Vice Chair). It was established in 2000 and developed a standard called eXtensible Name Service (XNS)[1]. This standards-development work was later brought to OASIS Open, where it became the eXtensible Resource Identifier (XRI) TC and the XRI Data Exchange (XDI) TC.

On this XNSORG page, Bill Washburn (the current Chair of XDIORG) appears as “President and Managing Director.” He later became the first Executive Director of the OpenID Foundation.

Meanwhile, around the same time, another movement had emerged: the N Liberty Alliance. Led by Sun Microsystem and others, it was an alliance opposing the identity standard called “Passport”[2], which Microsoft was promoting at the time; it was established on September 2001 and brought together more than 30 companies[3]. As you know, it promoted SAML, an Identity Management standard alongside OpenID. The Liberty Alliance was later dissolved as part of its further development and became today’s Kantara Initiative [4].

Microsoft Passport, Liberty Alliance SAML, OpenID/XNS—no matter how you looked at it, OpenID seemed destined to lose. Against this backdrop, the Three Kingdoms era of Digital Identity began.

(To be continued)

[1] I myself have been involved with XNS since 2000.

[2] Microsoft Passport was announced on October 11, 1999. It has since become Microsoft Live ID.

[3] http://www.projectliberty.org/ At its peak, it had more than 150 member companies. Its membership fees were also high, and it was a well-funded organization.

[4] Kantara Initiative. Today it primarily develops policies and standards and certifies products, rather than developing technical standards. “Kantara” means “bridge” in Swahili, and I proposed the name in the hope that it would serve as a bridge among the many identity-related organizations and standards. Another candidate was “Agora,” but “Kantara Initiative” was selected by vote.

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