Offer site registration and login with Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Yahoo! and other social networks.
This should cover the majority of users!
Here is a sample login page:
http://www.os2notes.com/testpage.html
Greggory
Would be a good default feature to have. I have a paid addon that does this using third party api's and integrates with SMF.
unlikely to ever be a standard feature....
For the same reason that such a linkage is not standard in WordPress and others... because they depend on third party sites. That's why....
We've said it several times already...
On a similar note, what are the possibilities of including multi-factor authentication, say Google Authenticator into the mix?
What might be more likely would be conversion of the login system to an API that can take multiple backends, including for remote services. I can see that being useful as it would then also allow LDAP logins.
Whichever way SMF does it, I think it would have such an advantage over other programs out there.
It will also allow webmasters to actually master their webs, rather than trying to figure out "How to" do something.