Kim asserts that the demo illustrates (paraphrasing) "user-centric technologies like Information Cards are not in any way counterposed to federation technologies".
I completely agree with the sentiment, but question whether the scenario portrayed by the demo actually demonstrates it.
In the demo, a user authenticates to a portal using CardSpace. Once authenticated, they are presented with a list of applications available to them for which SSO is possible (this presumably dependent n which I-Card they selected). For Kim, the user-centric piece (CardSpace) somehow ends at the portal, and from then on federation (SAML etc) takes over.
So, user-centric and federated technologies are shown as working together - but not at the same time. The user-centric piece hands off to the the federation piece. Federation is presented as a lower-level piece of infrastructure (which it can be) that doesn't seem to touch the user.
This interpretation is reinforced by Kim
To my way of thinking, you have two more or less orthogonal technology efforts - that oriented around federation issues, and that oriented around the user’s experience.
This ignores the possibility for SAML-based technologies to provide the very same user-experience (i.e. real-time identity sharing control, IDP selection etc) that I-Cards enables. Is SAML's Enhanced Client or Proxy (ECP), as it enables similar control mechanisms, then user-centric?
Probably not, as Kim also hilites the common UI of Cardspace and its relevance
Should my experience therefore be totally discontinuous as I move from one portal to another, being organized by the portal rather than by my own system
If the phone manufacturers (or those of set top boxes) were to come together and agree on user-interface standards - would that be user-centric?
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