In a recent post, Jamie Lewis began his much anticipated commentary on Kim’s “Laws of Identity.” Jamie thoughtfully suggests that what Kim is not really discussion laws but rather architecture principles:
“Still, I see what Kim calls ìlawsî as a set of proposed architecture principles.”
He then goes on to refer to The Burton Group’s own Reference Architecture which establishes principles as the foundation for any technical architecture. He concludes by saying that in the future he will be looking at Kim’s Laws as as a set of architecture principles for an Internet identity system.
Jamie, it seems like you are splitting hairs here. After The Burton Group’s “Reference Architecture” started out as a “Services Model.” If you look up the definition of a principle, you can’t help but run into the word “law.”
I think that Kim rasing his discussion to one of a set of defining laws instead of arcitecture principles is totally apporpriate.
Go for it Kim.
Update: Jamie sent me an email and we talked on the phone about the The Burton Group Reference Architecture. It turns out that the Network Services Model is a subset of the Reference Architecture that has completely different roots. My only explanation is that this all happened after I left my name sake company so I didn’t know. My point is still valid, I think “laws” are much more bankable than “architecture principles.”