Re: [OAUTH-WG] We appear to still be litigating OAuth, oops

[David Waite <[e-mail]>]

> On Feb 26, 2021, at 9:32 AM, Aaron Parecki <[e-mail]> wrote:

> The point is that basically nobody uses it because they don't want to allow arbitrary client registration at their ASs. That's likely due to a combination of pre-registration being the default model in OAuth for so long (the Dynamic Client Registration draft was published several years after OAuth 2.0), as well as how large corporations have decided to run their ASs where they want to have (what feels like) more control over the things talking to their servers.

Do you disagree that this gives them control over which things talk to their servers?

FWIW my personal mental model here is pretty simple:

With users, there are services you provide anonymously and services you provide only to registered/authenticated/trusted parties for various reasons. Once you are delegating user access, you still have many of the same reasons to provide access to anonymous or registered/authenticated/trusted delegates.

Dynamic registration arriving later and requiring additional complexity has unfortunately encouraged registration in use cases where anonymous clients might have been acceptable, but shifting the timelines or complexity balance would not  have changed business needs for authentication and trust of delegates. Omitting registration would have caused businesses to use other protocols that met their needs.

If AS’s are only getting what feels like proper control for their business needs, we should attempt to give them the actual control they require.

-DW