I’ve been working in the Identity Management space for a few years now. I started getting involved with the Shibboleth project while at the University of Memphis. After a year and a half, I moved to California and took a job at USC working in their middleware group. I’ve spent the last two years there helping to develop and manage various parts of the Identity Management cloud including the LDAP directories, meta-directory processes, and their Shibboleth environment. In October 2006 I formally joined the core Shibboleth development team, focusing on the Shibboleth 2.0 Identity Provider.

Meanwhile, I have also been toying with OpenID for a couple of years. In early 2007 or so, I sort of took over development of Alan Castonguay’s OpenID plugin for WordPress. I started with a couple of new features, then worked to add support for the latest OpenID protocol, lots of code refactoring, etc. I got to know characters like Chris Messina, Scott Kveton, and a host of others. I continued making updates to the WordPress plugin as I had time, but it never felt like enough. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly enjoyed the work I was doing at USC and with Shibboleth… I just would have liked to have had more time for everything else as well. Every now and then Chris or Scott would prod me about going to work at Google or somewhere to spend more time on OpenID and related technologies, but I wasn’t ready to leave my work at USC.

Late last year, Chris Messina and Steve Ivy announced the DiSo Project, initially based on my updated wp-openid plugin. Within the first week after it was announced, I sat down with Chris and Steve and we decided it would be best to officially move the wp-openid plugin under the DiSo umbrella to allow for tighter integration with the other planned work. Then a lot happened this last February in the social networking space — Google announced the Social Graph API and SGFoo really got people talking more about enriching the OpenID endpoint (among other things). Things were beginning to move pretty fast, and I felt like if I didn’t jump in now then I’d end up watching all the great new developments from the sidelines. I spent the next few months interviewing with a number of companies active in this space and made a couple of trips to San Francisco to talk with them in person.

In the end, a dinner conversation with Luke Sontag had me sold. I was quite familiar with Vidoop and their OpenID provider, knew they had a great development team, but had always been a little skeptical of the company. After Luke gave me a better picture of their overall vision and where technologies like DiSo fit into that picture, I knew that these guys really “get it”. They understand the importance of what DiSo is trying to do, and more importantly they are willing to do their part in making it a reality. I love Vidoop’s OpenID implementation and have been using it since before I took this job, but that’s not why I did. I took the job because the team at Vidoop know their shit, they know the kinds of problems we’re up against, and they are ready to take a shot at developing some real solutions. Well that and I really can’t wait to get started working with Chris a lot more. :)

Every marriage counseling book in the world would probably recommend otherwise, but I’m also taking a new job when we get back from the honeymoon. I resigned my position at USC early last week, and my last day will be next Friday April 25th, 2008. It is a bit bittersweet, as I really wish I would have had the time to wrap up more of the unfinished projects I’m leaving behind, but I trust that they are in good enough hands and will be well cared for. If things go as planned, I will continue on as part of the core Shibboleth development team, which I feel is very important. There are a few major additions to Shibboleth we’ve talked about adding, but simply haven’t had the time. The primary attraction to the new job is quite simply the work I’ll be doing and who I’ll be doing it with — I’ll finally be able to really dig in to some of the projects that haven’t received the level of attention I would have liked to give. Aside from that, I don’t think I’m ready to say too much else about the new job, only that it is in San Francisco and that we will be moving up there as soon as the wedding is over and we find a place.

• setup new Shibboleth IdP at USC with updated version of Shibboleth and more important new policy. It’s been a rocky road, and will continue to be, since we’re running two different IdPs in parallel right now, but we’re slowly working on migrating everyone over to the new environment.
• developed a number of small patches and extensions for Shibboleth to customize it how we wanted it to work, two of which were committed upstream (ARP Constraints and Deny Anonymous) and included in the Shibboleth IdP release as of version 1.3.1.
• in October, was asked to join the core Shibboleth development team. That took a couple of months to work out the details with my management, but now a portion of my time at USC is spent helping to develop Shibboleth 2.0. My primary focus is the attribute resolver and the attribute release policy engine, which will be included in the IdP and the Java implementation of the SP.
• we’ve made significant updates to the meta-directory processes at USC that populate our LDAP directory. I’m currently working on fully taking over the development of those processes so the previous developer can take more of an architectural role, which is what he’s really good at.
• attended seven conferences across the US and Canada, giving a couple of sessions myself. I’m enjoying the conferences and seeing the cities, just not the actual act of traveling.
• not directly work related, but I’m finally getting a little more serious about working on OpenID stuff. It’s mainly just small implementations at this point, but there’s been talk for a while about trying to achieve some interoperability between OpenID and SAML. We’re already trying to make Shibboleth work with Cardspace, so who really knows.

So this next year should see moving to our new offices (probably in the next few weeks), the deployment of a new guest system at USC, the release of Shibboleth 2.0, working on Shibboleth 2.1, and who knows what else. So for those of you back home that have wondered if I’m actually doing anything out here on the west coast, the answer is yes (though not as much as I’d like).

Life…

I’ve just recently accepted a position as a software developer at the University of Southern California. As much as I love working at the University of Memphis, there have been a number of contributing factors leading me toward something new. I first got in touch with USC last October when they were looking for a Shibboleth Administrator; of course, I’ve been working on Shibboleth for the last year and know the project very well. Things didn’t quite work out, but I didn’t worry about it too much as I had several other opportunites come up right at that time.

Over New Years, I spent two weeks in LA to go to a concert and see some friends, and while I was there I setup a lunch with the guys from USC. I was actually interested in just meeting the guys, but also figured I could poke a little more about any positions they had available. It was a good thing we did meet, as they had a new development position they wanted to create that I’d be a great fit for. It’s now about three weeks later, and I’m packing my bags for California.

…and Love…

About five years ago, I started working with Skillet to help build and organize a community website for their fans. A year or so into the project, I met Elisabeth who was administering another aspect of their fanbase, and we worked together in various capacities for the next couple of years. She was living in southern California, so I finally got to meet her in the Summer of 2002 when I took a trip with some friends out there to see Skillet and meet some of the CA panheads. There was always a mutual attraction between the two of us, but given the distance and unfortunate timing nothing really happened. Life went on, and we lost touch for about a year or so until my initial contact with USC in October. I got back in touch with her to let her know what was going on, and the timing was finally right — everything just clicked. Even though the job didn’t work out and it didn’t look like I would be moving to LA, the machine had already started and neither of us had any intention of slowing it down. When I was in LA for New Years, I stayed with her and her family and we hit it off really well.

…and Why

There’s one other detail that helps bring things into perspective a little bit. After the original position at USC didn’t look like it was going to work, my boss put me in touch with a colleague of his at a very prestigious university in Washington, DC. I don’t know how else to put it, but this was quite simply the greatest job opportunity I’ve ever had. I would have been continuing with the project I’ve been working on the last year, but using it in really unique ways in medical and government applications. I’d be contributing to cancer research projects, helping secure inter-departmental communication within the national government — it’s what I like to refer to as “saving the world” type of stuff. On top of that I love DC, love politics, and would only be a couple of hours away from my brother and his family in North Carolina.

This isn’t to say that I’m at all disappointed in the job at USC, quite the contrary in fact. I say all this now so that when I tell you that I’m moving to California for a girl, you can understand that this is not a whimsical, impulsive move. We’re certainly not picking out rings in the immediate future (not a big fan of really long engagements), but suffice it to say I wouldn’t be turning down the job in DC and moving across the country if this wasn’t serious. We’re being very deliberate to keep our friends, families, and churches involved every step of the way to make sure we do this right. Right now she’s in school at SDSU working on a bachelor’s degree in business. Hopefully she’ll be graduating Spring 2007, and after that… well, all in good time.

Current plans are for Elisabeth to fly to Memphis on February 9th, and then we’ll drive back to California that weekend. USC is putting me up in temporary housing for the time being until I can find a place to live in LA, which is a really nice relief. Most of my contact info won’t be changing anytime soon, but just know that my contact page will always have the latest. Several friends have suggested having a little send-off party (I’m thinking on the evening of the 9th, so everyone can meet Elisabeth), so I’ll have more details here for those Memphis folks that wish to attend.

(please leave any comments here as opposed to email if appropriate… makes it easier to keep everything together)