Higgins is an
open-source project dedicated to giving individuals more control over their personal identity, profile and social network data.
The project is organized into three main areas:
#Active Clients - An active client integrates with a browser and runs on a computer or mobile device.
#* Higgins 1.X: the active client supports the OASIS IMI protocol and performs the functions of an
Information Card ''selector''.
#* Higgins 2.0: the plan is to move beyond ''selector'' functionality to add support for managing passwords and Higgins relationship cards, as well other protocols such as
OpenID
OpenID is an open standard and decentralized authentication protocol promoted by the non-profit OpenID Foundation. It allows users to be authenticated by co-operating sites (known as relying parties, or RP) using a third-party identity provider ...
. It also becomes a client for the Personal Data Store (see below) and thereby provides a kind of dashboard for personal information and a place to manage "permissioning"—deciding who gets access to what slice of the user's data.
#Personal Data Store (PDS) is a new work area under development for Higgins 2.0. A PDS stores local personal data, controls access to remotely hosted personal data, synchronizes personal data to other devices and computers, accessed directly or via a PDS client it allows the user to share selected aspects of their information with people and organizations that they trust.
#Identity Services - Code for (i) an IMI and SAML compatible Identity Provider and (ii) enabling websites to be IMI and OpenID compatible.
History
The initial code for the Higgins Project was written by
Paul Trevithick in the summer of 2003. In 2004 the effort became part o
SocialPhysics.org a collaboration between Paul and Mary Ruddy, o
Azigo (formerly Parity Communications, Inc.), an
Meristic and John Clippinger, at the
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, ...
. Higgins, under its original name Eclipse Trust Framework, was accepted into the
Eclipse Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation AISBL is an independent, Europe-based not-for-profit corporation that acts as a steward of the Eclipse open source software development community, with legal jurisdiction in the European Union. It is an organization suppo ...
in early 2005. Mary and Paul are the project co-leads.
IBM and
Novell's participation in the project was announced in early 2006. Higgins has received technology contributions from
IBM,
Novell,
Oracle,
CA, Serena,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
eperi GmbHas well as from several other firms and individuals. Version 1.0 was released in February 2008.
As of 2019 Eclipse Higgins is archived, meaning that it is an inactive project.
See also
*
Windows CardSpace
Windows CardSpace (codenamed InfoCard) is a discontinued identity selector app by Microsoft. It stores references to digital identities of the users, presenting them as visual information cards. CardSpace provides a consistent UI designed to ...
(formerly code-named InfoCard)
*
I-Card
*
Information Card
References
{{Reflist
Eclipse (software)
Federated identity
Identity management initiative