[wvenable]

I never bothered to sign up at stackoverflow because of OpenID. Not necessarily because I have some philosophical issue with it, but because I already have a system to maintain this stuff and OpenID is just another hoop to jump through. Adding an optional user/password signup is hardly difficult.

[jrockway]

Honestly, I'd rather not give Jeff my password. So +1 on OpenID.

[wvenable]

What's stopping you from setting your password to jeff_sucks? It's pretty memorable too.

[StavrosK]

Nothing is stopping me from setting my password to something different for every site I don't want to set a good password for, I'd just very very much rather just enter a URL and have everything work. OpenID is the most useful thing online in ages.

[kylec]

The difference with Stack Overflow is that you can, and may people do, use it without an OpenID. Just go ahead and post a question or answer, and you'll be assigned a cookie-based account. And if you put in an email address, you can download a new cookie for that account at any time.

[wvenable]

You can't vote without a login.