I am not sanguine on the idea, but the marketing for the idea is beyond terrible. The IDL is a leaky abstraction because the most salient features of drivers licenses are a) you have to apply to the government to get one, b) the government can take yours away with as much ease as they can do anything else, and c) if you lose your license, you will be denied the ability to use one or more critical goods/services (driving).

That is what your mother thinks of when she hears Driver's License. Why on earth would that be the branding you pick for OpenID or federated authentication? You are practically trolling your own idea at that point!

Observe the kinds of things people are going to say about any federated identity scheme which you call a License:

"Jeff Atwood thinks the government should be able to take away your Facebook account! He's fascist!" "I didn't say that!"

"Jeff Atwood thinks your mom shouldn't be allowed on the Internet until she stops calling it 'the Googles'! He's an elitist bastard!" "I didn't say that!"

"Jeff Atwood thinks that if you get kicked off a WoW server you should lose your Gmail account. He's in bed with corporate interests!" "I didn't say that!"