Need of the Hour for OpenID

Its been 2 weeks now that I have been involved with using OpenID. It all began when I decided to try out OpenID with a small application. Thats when it hit me, that OpenID is not going to "happen" without a verified email address. You can read the rest of it in my last 4 posts. I really want this to happen. 

The remarkable thing about OpenID is that it has all the major players (Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc etc) on their board. I havent seen anything like this happen to a standards body ever. (Correct me if I am wrong). Usually what happens to any web standard is that a rival standard will pop up, splitting the major players more or less equally among them.  This is a testimony to the great work done by the pioneers of OpenID, though things have not yet panned out like they would have wished. 

It is increasingly clear to me, that the solution involves a centralized distribution mechanism which I alluded to in my "Suggestions for OpenID 2.1". Something in the lines of "Personal Discovery Service". 

This can be possible only if all the major players come to an agreement on this. OpenID is in a perfect position to make this happen. This is easier said than done though. All the major players have their own vested interests. 

To begin with, the solution must only consider sharing of basic profile data. Bringing in other social data will only magnify the disagreements. And in any case as far as Openid is concerned its interests should only be in the basic profile. 

If the major players cant come together on this, then the only way out will be to leave out the Openid Providers from the equation and go straight for the Relying Party's. This is not too difficult a problem to solve. Definitely some food for thought.