I love OpenID, but it isn’t really trivial to understand how and why it works, but the Fred Stutzman at claimID have put together a huge list of resources about OpenID.

At ClaimID, we’re pretty enamored with OpenID. OpenID is going to make all of our lives easier, it makes our company more useful and valuable, and more and more smart companies are adopting the standard. That’s pretty exciting to us. I thought it might be useful to collect together some OpenID resources – so we can give our users a little roadmap to OpenID.

1 – What is OpenID?

• OpenID website – Start here. This site has all the information you need on the distributed identity system that actually works.
• OpenID Wikipedia entry – A very robust entry that covers a lot of the ongoing developments with OpenID. Do yourself a favor and just bookmark it now.
• About OpenID – Brian Ellin’s bullet list description of OpenID with great links and Japanese translation.

2 – How does OpenID Work?

• How does OpenID work? – Identity master Phil Windley breaks down OpenID into remarkably human-digestable terms with a great diagram.
• OpenID Protocol Specification – This is the source for information on OpenID 1.0 and 2.0. Geeky, but, hey, it is a protocol after all.
• Another protocol walkthrough – This one is from Dag Arneson, and it has some great comments.

3 – OpenID Resource Sites

• OpenIDenabled.com – This site, from the wonderful folks at JanRain, is host to tons of great information on OpenID. Documentation, protocol specs, how-to’s, FAQ’s – this site is extremely valuable.
• IwantMyOpenID.com – The OpenID community marketing site and home to the OpenID 50,000 dollar bounty. Headed by Scott Kveton, this effort has had remarkable progress so far.
• OpenID Mailing Lists - If you’re part of the OpenID community, you’re going to want to join this list. The latest list to be added is the necessary user-experience list.

4 – I want OpenID! Where can I get (and use) an OpenID?

• ClaimID. Did you know that everyone who joins ClaimID gets an OpenID? Sure, you get all the other good stuff – caching, status monitoring, verification – but you also get an OpenID that you can use all over the net. We admit slight bias here.
• All the other places. OpenID providers are springing up all over the net. The lists keep growing and growing! If you must use someone other than ClaimID for OpenID, we’re partial to JanRain’s MyOpenID.net, as this site is updated frequently and is very reliable.
• Where can I use an OpenID? Sites include LiveJournal, Technorati, ClaimID, Wikitravel and Zooomr, with new ones being added frequently.

5 – I am advanced. I want some OpenID Software.

• Ok, you’ve gulped the kool-aid. And now you want to implement OpenID on your site. I would encourage you to check out the following resources: OpenID.net’s list of OpenId Libraries, OpenIDEnabled’s list of OpenID Libraries, EastMedia’s RoR OpenID Server, and the OpenID bounty site. Technorati or Google searches on OpenID libraries will likely also keep you in the know about recent OpenID developments as developers post them to their blogs.

6 – OpenID Bloggers.

• Scott Kveton – This is the blog to follow for news about OpenID. (RSS)
• Johannes Ernst – Useful information from the Netmesh founder. (RSS)
• Chris Messina – OpenID advocate and evangelist. (RSS)
• Kaliya Hamlin – The nexus of grassroots identity. (RSS)
• Planet OpenID – Meta-blog for the OpenID community. (RSS)

[via claimID Blog]