“OpenLDAP is the de facto Open Source reference implementation
of the Internet standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP, see RFC 4510). This standard is now in Version 3 and was
recently republished to clarify some points. Ever since various
experimenters began developing bridges between internet
applications and pre-internet X.500 directories, they have relied
on a reference implementation to validate their approaches and
verify the standard would be robust and complete.“The original reference implementation was done at the
University of Michigan where much of the LDAP innovation was done.
When the Michigan team joined Netscape, the code languished for a
bit and then the OpenLDAP project was formed to continue the Open
Source work as the standard continued to evolve over the past
decade…”