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This post is about how the feeling of community can be better integrated
in the KDE desktop. This should be done in a way that every (especially new)
user gets the idea, right from the start, that there is more than just the
software used. There is also a follow up idea presented in my next post.

OpenID
OpenID is a wide spread way to identify an user in the internet. You have to
have an OpenID or a similar way to identify yourself if you want to comment on
blogs of some KDE developers (Aarons, for example). I do not want do blame
anyone for the usage of an identification system for his blog. Unfortunately,
there are good reasons for doing so. There are as well community pages like
userbase or this page here which accepts an OpenID for logging in. What is
missing is the possibility to register for an OpenID account on the KDE sides.
Userbase [1] presents a range of OpenID providers where one can get an
OpenID account but there are two problems with this approach:

• A new community enthusiast has to decide which provider to choose and he has
  to dig in the terms of this provider to find out what will happen to his data.
  
• Having an account on the side of $randomProvider does not make a user feel
  like he is a part of the KDE community per se.
  

To overcome this limitations it would be very helpfull to run an OpenID server
on the KDE servers so one could have an OpenID account from the KDE project. I
think give away personal data to a project one trusts in is much easier than to
give it to someone unknown.

Integration
I think there are two places we should make the OpenID account visible. The
first is in the first run/welcome wizzard of KDE. If you buy what I have
proposed, there should be the offer to open an OpenID account on the KDE server.
This would ensure that the user gets a notion of beeing part of a community
right from the start.

The second place is in the KDE system settings. Since the community and
therefore the internet should be a first class citizen in KDE there should be
an own tab to configure all the community concerning stuff right in the system
settings. This includes, but in not limited to the OpenID account information.

What's next
So far we have gained a general way to identify our users and made it possible
for them to interact easily through our community platforms. But there is more.
Read my next post on how "ownCloud" [2] could be integrated into KDE as a
complete service.


[1]http://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Special:OpenIDLogin&returnto=Welcome_to_KDE_UserBase
[2]http://www.socialdesktop.org/kdeandthecloud.pdf

This is very god and thought out idea, but we do have a one idea per post rule.
And your post has two ideas
1): create KDE OpenID provider
2): create KDE Cloud.
So I think you should break this post in two ideas.
I know they kind of link on on another.
You can't have KDE Cloud without KDE OpenID provider, but still...
And I'm pretty sure KDE OpenID provider was proposed already.

Splitting the post into two is no problem. I will alter the text above so it covers only one topic and post the other idea seperately.
Since I have not found an OpenID provider proposal I will keep this topic.

ReedWood wrote:Splitting the post into two is no problem. I will alter the text above so it covers only one topic and post the other idea seperately.
Since I have not found an OpenID provider proposal I will keep this topic.

Good you do that.