UKAMF revisited

At least one reader felt that my previous posting about the UK Access Management Federation was overly negative about the JISC.

That was not my intention, and if that is how people interpreted it, then I apologise.  Sure, I have some minor grumbles along the way, but as a long-term supporter of open standards I completely endorse the current move to Shibboleth within UK academia and I take my hat off to the JISC, and the projects that they have funded so far, for what has been achieved to date.

But that doesn't change my fundamental point, which is that the move to open standards inevitably opens up the marketplace to commercial competition (a good thing), meaning that suppliers like Eduserv have to take decisions about technology and product branding somewhat differently to how they did it in the past. We need to find our position in the new space as much as anyone else - and as part of doing that we need to be careful not to confuse Athens the technology with Athens the product.