There are several specific issues with the existing, authentication methods used on the WMF sites:

• Increasingly, 3rd party cookies are disabled in browsers
• Several bugs related to CentralAuth's single sign-on system

Additionally, several new features for authentication and authorization have been requested:

• OpenID
• OAuth
• Cross-wiki editing (Mobile, VisualEditor)

SeeAuth systems/2013

Summary:

• August 2013: SUL2 (fixing CentralAuth bugs and modernizing single-user signon for newer browsers)
• August 2013: Wikimedia-internal cross-wiki edit tokens
• November 2013: OAuth
• Delayed until sometime in 2014: OpenID

• Auth systems/SUL2 - Description of improved SUL setup
• Auth systems/OAuth - Plan for implementation of OAuth

• Authentication and login

• WMF Projects 2013q1
• WMF Projects 2013q2