Wedge

Well... Actually, if I remember correctly, we remove OpenID entirely long ago, because its support was pretty average in SMF, and Pete preferred to rewrite it to take a newer version into account, or something.
(Nothing was done on that front, though. But I'm not sure it's very important...? If only because most people would rather have FB Connect support.)

Interesting. I'm surprised it wasn't widely accepted. I have often lamented the excessive number of accounts I need to have to participate in multiple forums. (And I'll be working with a group of Anti-FB folks)

OpenID is too complicated to use for most users. Heck, for a long time you actually needed to have a website of your own and add some tags into the HTML...!

Hehe, no way! Well, that's the end of that!

No, you don't need your own site to handle OpenID, I have had two OpenID accounts for years, but given that SMF's support is immature, and neither account provider supports SMF... Removing it entirely was the best course of action.

The plan eventually is to make it a plugin, but support the later standards too.

You needed a website if you couldn't find a provider willing to help. Back in the beginning it was hard.