WSA assumes SOAP?

[resending from my private account ... sorry if a duplicate arrives at some point]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hao He [mailto:Hao.He@thomson.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 1:57 AM
> To: 'Christopher B Ferris'; www-ws-arch@w3.org
> Subject: RE: new editor's draft of WSA available
> 
> 

> that in many cases, SOAP messaging is not necessary at all.  
> People are just
> happy to get XML from a URL without any SOAP packaging.  This 
> is actually
> fine for many use cases (especially for query type of 
> services).  I hope
> that messaging without SOAP can also become part of the document.

Here's what I would suggest saying about this somewhere early in the document:

"Our definition of the term "Web Services" does not presuppose the use of SOAP as 
a packaging format or a processing model.  Nor does it presuppose the use of WSDL 
as a service description language.  There are, and will be in the future, plenty 
of "web services" that use raw HTTP as a data transfer protocol and some mutually 
agreed-upon XML format as the message content.  The Web Services *reference 
architecture* does, however, assume that the higher levels of the web services 
protocol stack are built on the foundation of SOAP and WSDL.  

This "blessing" of SOAP and WSDL is not logically necessary, since some other 
mechanism could be defined to gather XML message components into a single package, 
and other description mechanisms [mention DAML-S ??] could be used instead of 
WSDL. Perhaps in the long run, other technologies will supplant SOAP and WSDL, and 
it is not the intent of the WSA to discourage research and experimentation in 
these areas. On the other hand, the WSA WG believes that a common foundation is a 
*practical* necessity for the industry to move forward with additional web 
services functionality, including security, choreography, etc.  Thus, the WSA 
reference architecture builds on SOAP and WSDL as the basis for messaging and 
description. Specifications that conform to the WSA reference architecture MUST 
use SOAP and WSDL when appropriate."

Or something like that ...

Received on Friday, 25 October 2002 11:18:55 UTC