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GssIntroduction

Introduction

  1. Background
  2. High-Level Organization of the GSS
  3. Audiences for the GSS
    1. Internet Governance and Policy Makers
    2. Registrars and I-Brokers
    3. Trust Federations
    4. XRI/XDI Developers and Vendors
  4. Other Key Introductory Documents

NOTE: The content on this page is non-normative, i.e., it is not officially part of the XDI.ORG Global Services Specifications (GSS), but only introductory material. See GssDefinitions for further terminology and layout conventions.

1. Background

XDI.ORG was founded in July 2000 to serve as a public trust for the development of open, community-governed infrastructure for persistent identity and trusted data sharing. In late 2002 its first public specifications were contributed to OASIS to become the starting points for the XRI (Extensible Resource Identifier) and XDI (XRI Data Interchange) Technical Committees. The complete [WWW]history of XDI.ORG and more information about XRI, XDI and XDI.ORG is available at the [WWW]XDI.ORG website.

With the XRI and XDI specifications now emerging from OASIS, XDI.ORG is embarking on the second phase of its charter to establish open public Global Services for use of XRIs and XDI. The first pilot program for these services, called [WWW]Early Global Services, was developed in conjunction with [WWW]Identity Commons and [WWW]launched at [WWW]Digital ID World 2004.

The next step is publication and public review of these proposed Global Services Specifications (GSS) for the official launch of XDI.ORG Global Registry Services (GRS). This wikiweb site contains the complete normative GSS specifications in draft form. The public review process will continue through March - see the FrontPage for details about how to comment via either this wiki or the [WWW]GSS Comment mailing list.

2. High-Level Organization of the GSS

Although it consists of 20 individual wiki pages and a handful of additional linked documents, the GSS can basically be broken down into five major areas.

3. Audiences for the GSS

GSS review is recommended for the following audiences.

3.1. Internet Governance and Policy Makers

While its roots and structure are very different, the role XDI.ORG plays in XRI/XDI infrastructure is similar to that [WWW]ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) plays for DNS and IP infrastructure. Therefore anyone interested in the emergence of community-governed public infrastructure for persistent identity and trusted data sharing should have an interest in the policies and practices being established in the GSS.

Recommended sections for this audience:

3.2. Registrars and I-Brokers

Service providers who are basing new services on emerging XRI/XDI infrastructure (called "i-brokers") should have a strong interest in the GSS. I-brokers who choose to become XDI.ORG-Accredited Registrars have the ability to register Global I-Names/I-Numbers with the Global Registry Service (GRS), a very similar role to that which ICANN-Accredited Registrars play in the ICANN Shared Registry System (SRS) for domain names.

Recommended sections for this audience:

3.3. Trust Federations

Trust federations are associations that are emerging to help solve the same interoperability and trust issues for i-brokers that credit card associations help solved for banks in the 1960's. Two examples are [WWW]Identity Commons and [WWW]Ping Identity. XDI.ORG XRI/XDI infrastructure is specifically designed to provide the underlying infrastructure for trust federations of any size.

Recommended sections for this audience:

3.4. XRI/XDI Developers and Vendors

Lastly, XRI/XDI infrastructure is designed to enable entirely new types of servers, services, tools, and applications that need persistent identity and trusted data sharing as a foundation. Developers and vendors of these new software products and services have a vested interest in the quality and stability of the Global Services offered by XDI.ORG.

Recommended sections for this audience:

4. Other Key Introductory Documents

The GSS wiki includes several other non-normative documents and FAQs designed to facilitate rapid understanding and review of the specifications. See the list of these documents the end of the FrontPage.