Still working on descriptions.
See *** for some new/merged items.
Most of the words are from Rogers message [1].

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-ws-arch/2003Oct/0010.html

Paul


Ednote:
Pointer to IPR policies for various orgs (W3C, OASIS)
Copyright != IPR
Copyright not related to implementation of spec.

SOAP - Basic messaging spec for Web services. SOAP 1.1 has been very widely implemented and is part of the WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.0. SOAP 1.2 went to Recommendation status in June, 2003. It does not seem likely that SOAP 1.2 will be particularly controversial and major vendors will probably implement it quickly now that it is a recommendation.

        Web Services Interoperability Organization, Basic Profile Version 1.0a, Final Specification, 2003-08-08, http://ws-i.org/Profiles/Basic/2003-08/BasicProfile-1.0a.html
        W3C NOTE, SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol 1.1, 08 May 2000, http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-20000508/
        W3C, SOAP Version 1.2 Part 1: Messaging Framework, W3C Recommendation, 24 June 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-soap12-part1-20030624/
        W3C, SOAP Version 1.2 Part 2: Adjuncts, W3C Recommendation, 24 June 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/REC-soap12-part2-20030624/

EbMS - EbXML Messaging - transport, routing and packaging of business transactions. Part of the larger ebXML structure, this spec leverages SOAP 1.1 but adds a number of business-critical capabilities such as security (roughly at the level of WS-Security, I think) and reliability. EbMS 1.0 was part of the original ebXML package, ebMS 2.0 is a significant improvement, currently in "final draft" in OASIS (I think). In practice it appears that much of the industry uptake of ebXML has been essentially ebMS as opposed to the higher level portions of the ebXML package.

        OASIS, Message Service Specification, Version 2.0, OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee, 1 April 2002, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ebxml-msg/documents/ebMS_v2_0.pdf


WSDL - Basic Web services description spec. WSDL 1.1 has been very widely implemented and is part of the WS-I Basic Profile Version 1.0. WSDL 1.2 is being developed in the W3C and is in a "middle" stage of the process. There does not seem to be any particular competition to WSDL 1.2 in other standards organizations and major vendors will probably implement it quickly once it becomes a recommendation (which will take a while).

        W3C, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) 1.1, W3C Node, 15 March 2001, http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/NOTE-wsdl-20010315
        W3C, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 Part 1: Core Language, W3C Working Draft, 11 June 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-wsdl12-20030611
        W3C, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 Part 2: Message Patterns, W3C Working Draft, 11 June 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-wsdl12-patterns-20030611
        W3C, Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 1.2 Part 3: Bindings, W3C Working Draft, 11 June 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-wsdl12-bindings-20030611

EbCPPA - EbXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement - The Collaboration Protocol Profiles (CPPs) and Agreements (CPAs) which define a business partner's technical capabilities to engage in electronic business collaborations with other partners, and the technical agreement between two or more partners to engage in electronic business collaboration. Version 1.0 was part of the original ebXML package, version 2 has significant upgrades and was ratified Dec, 2002. Although the CPP/CPA framework seems very business oriented, I do not know of many (or any, to be honest) examples of it being used in production.

        OASIS, Collaboration-Protocol Profile and Agreement Specification, Version 2.0, OASIS ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement Technical Committee, 23 September 2002 ,http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/204/ebcpp-2.0.pdf

UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration)- Web services registry. Version 2 adopted 4/2003 has been implemented by a number of vendors. Version 3, under development, includes new features like subscriptions/notification, support for digital signatures, keys assigned by publishers rather than registry providers (which may facilitate the development of federation), better support for copying of registry entries between non-replicated registries. UDDI v3 specifies Schema Centric Canonocalization when using digital signatures.  Implementation of UDDI on the internet has stalled but there is widespread interest in using UDDI in corporate intranets.

        OASIS, Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) Version 3.0 Published Specification, 19 July 2002, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/uddi-spec/doc/tcspecs.htm#uddiv3
        OASIS, Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) V2.0, 19 July 2002, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/uddi-spec/tcspecs.shtml#uddiv2

        OASIS, Schema Centric XML Canonicalization, Version 1.0, 10 July 2002, http://uddi.org/pubs/SchemaCentricCanonicalization-20020710.htm

ebXML Registry Services - - ebeXML registry, provides function along lines similar to UDDI. Version 2 adopted 12/2001. See also the ebXML Registry Information Model

        OASIS, OASIS/ebXML Registry Information Model v2.0, Approved OASIS Standard, OASIS/ebXML Registry Technical Committee, April 2002, http://oasis-open.org/committees/regrep/documents/2.0/specs/ebrim.pdf
        OASIS, OASIS/ebXML Registry Services Specification v2.0, Approved OASIS Standard, OASIS/ebXML Registry Technical Committee, April 2002, http://oasis-open.org/committees/regrep/documents/2.0/specs/ebrs.pdf

AS2 - Probably best viewed as an alternative to Web services, AS2 is a draft spec from the IETF. It has not made it completely through the IETF process, but it appears to be relatively stable nonetheless. It provides basic but non-extensible security and reliability features for a payload that may be a binary file (typically an old fashioned EDI file) or XML. AS2 seems to be appropriate for simple transactions, particularly those that can be performed synchronously, but may not lend itself to more elaborate scenarios. WalMart has provided a huge boost to AS2 implementation by requiring in order to do EDI business with them. See, for example, discussions in product offerings from Isoft and Sterling Commerce.

XML Signature - Digital signature for an XML document, providing proof of data integrity, message and user authentication. Used by WS-Security and ebXML security. This is a mature, widely used spec.

        W3C, XML-Signature Syntax and Processing - W3C Recommendation, 12 February 2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/xmldsig-core/

XML Encryption - Digital encryption of documents or portions of documents. Recently (12/2002) finalized, not yet widely used but presumably it will be.

        W3C, XML Encryption Syntax and Processing - W3C Recommendation, 10 December 2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/PR-xmlenc-core-20021003/


XKMS - XML Key Management - Protocols for distributing and managing public keys, intended for use with XML Signature and Encryption. Work in progress. Based on XKMS proposal http://www.w3.org/TR/xkms/

        W3C, XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) - W3C Note, 30 March 2001, http://www.w3.org/TR/xkms/

WS-CHOR - Web Services Choreography WSCI, from Sun and others (not MS/IBM), was a major submission but the working group has received other submissions and has moved significantly beyond WSCI. Describes the flow of messages exchanged by a Web Service participating in choreographed interactions with other services. Considerable overlap with BPEL, but more declarative and oriented toward message sequencing rather than process description. WS-CHOR is intended to be a language that allows machines to figure out how to use Web services, BPEL focuses on how to control Web services.  (See also http://xml.coverpages.org/bpm.html)

        W3C NOTE, Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI) 1.0, 8 August 2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-wsci-20020808
        *** W3C NOTE, Web Services Conversation Language (WSCL) 1.0, 14 March 2002, http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/NOTE-wscl10-20020314/

BPEL - Web Services Business Process Execution Language business process execution language which form the necessary technical foundation for multiple usage patterns including both the process interface descriptions required for business protocols and executable process models. Based on BPEL4WS submission from Microsoft, IBM and BEA. WSFL (IBM) and XLANG (Microsoft) were earlier efforts. Considerable overlap with Web Services Choreography, but more process oriented. See above.

        BEA/IBM/Microsoft, Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, Version 1.0, 31 July 2002, http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpel/
        BEA/IBM/Microsoft/SAP/Siebel, Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, Version 1.1, 5 May 2003,

        ***IBM, Web Services Flow Language (WSFL 1.0), May 2001, http://www-3.ibm.com/software/solutions/webservices/pdf/WSFL.pdf
        ***Microsoft, XLANG, 2001, http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/xml_wsspecs/xlang-c/default.htm

ebBPSS - ebXML Business Process - Representation and model compatible with an underlying generic metamodel for business processes, activities, and collaboration. This is the ebXML version of choreography, and I think it is simpler than either WS-CHOR or BPEL. Version 1.001 was part of the original ebXML package, and I think that an OASIS TC is just now in the process of starting up to work on enhancements. I am not aware of any significant applications of ebBPSS.

        OASIS-UN/CEFACT, ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS), Version 1.01, 11 May 2001, http://www.ebxml.org/specs/ebBPSS.pdf

WS-Security – Construct secure SOAP message exchanges, including provision for multiple security tokens for authorization and authentication, multiple trust domains, multiple encryption technologies and end-to-end message-level security (not just transport-level security). Out of scope: multiple message exchanges, key exchange, establishing and maintaining trust. WS-Security defines two core capabilities: 1- how to use XML-Signature and XML-Encryption with SOAP messaging. It specifies how to pass signatures and key information in a SOAP header. 2- how to pass security tokens with a SOAP message. WS-Security supports a variety of security tokens (each defined by its own binding specification), such as userid/password, X.509 certificates, Kerberos tickets, and SAML tokens. The WS-Security TC is just starting in OASIS, but major vendors (MS, IBM) have already implemented the submitted spec.

        IBM/Microsoft/VeriSign, "Web Services Security (WS-Security)", 5 April 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/04/Security/
        IBM/Microsoft/VeriSign, "Web Services Security Addendum", Version 1.0, 18 August 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/07/Security/
        OASIS, Web Services Security, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/1204/doc-index.html


SAML – Security Assertion Markup Language. Exchanging authorization and authentication information. Version 1.0 finalized 11/2002. SAML defines three core capabilities: 1- how to represent security tokens in XML. These tokens are called assertions, and SAML defines three types of assertions -- authentication, authorization, and attributes. (attributes provide qualifying information that constrain the other assertions -- such as spending limits or timing constraints). An assertion is made by some type of trust authority. 2- a process model for obtaining security tokens from a trust authority. This includes a set of protocols for accessing a trust authority. SAML defines two types of trust authorities: Policy Decision Points (PDPs) and Policy Enforcement Points (PEPs). SAML has defined bindings for multiple protocols, including SOAP/WSDL. 3- a set of protocol bindings for conveying SAML tokens. SAML 1.1 defines how to pass SAML tokens for browser applications. It does not define bindings for how to pass SAML tokens in SOAP messages -- that is left to WS-Security. It appears that this spec may be getting some real traction in terms of practical implementations. See, for example, this auto industry implementation.

        OASIS, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) v1.1, OASIS Standard, 2 September 2003, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/3400/oasis-sstc-saml-1.1-pdf-xsd.zip
        OASIS, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), v1.0, OASIS Standard, 5 Nov 2002, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/1383/oasis-sstc-saml-1.0-pdf.zip

*** Trust  - 
        *** IBM/Microsoft/VeriSign/RSA Security, Web Services Trust Language (WS-Trust), Version 1.0, 18 December 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/12/ws-trust/

Reliable Messaging: A protocol that allows messages to be delivered reliably between distributed applications in the presence of software component, system, or network failures by implementing an acknowledgement infrastructure. There are two major specs that differ in some technical respects but which by and large implement the same type of functionality:
- Web Services Reliability - OASIS TC. Based on WS-Reliability submission from Oracle, Sun and others.
        Fujitsu/Hitachi/Oracle/Sonic/Sun, Web Services Reliability (WS-Reliability) Ver1.0, 8 Jan 2003, http://www.sonicsoftware.com/wsreliability

- WS-ReliableMessaging from BEA Systems, Microsoft, IBM, Tibco. Not currently submitted to any standards body but being implemented nevertheless by several technology vendors.
        BEA/IBM/Microsoft/TIBCO Software, "Web Services Reliable Messaging Protocol (WS-ReliableMessaging)", 13 March 2003, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2003/03/ws-reliablemessaging/

XACML – XML Access Control Markup Language – Fine-grained access control to XML documents, including by element, sub-tree, temporal, data dependent and so on. Here is a brief introduction to XACML. XACL from IBM, was one of the major submissions for this spec but there were a number of others and XACML differs substantially from XACL. Spec finalized 2/2003.

        OASIS, eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) Version 1.0, OASIS Standard, 18 February 2003,http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/940/oasis-xacml-1.0.pdf

WS-Transaction Framework - WS-Transaction and WS-Coordination were originally released by IBM, Microsoft and BEA along with BPEL4WS. These specifications have recently been updated and revised. The latest set of specifications for the WS Transaction Framework, published by the same authors, include an updated WS-Coordination spec, WS-AtomicTransaction which replaces part 1 of WS-Transaction, and WS-BusinessActivity (still to be published) which replaces part 2 of WS-Transaction. WS-Coordination defines the protocols for creating activities, registering in activities, and transmitting information to disseminate an activity. WS-AtomicTransaction defines the Atomic Transaction coordination type, which is appropriate to use when building applications that require a consistent agreement on the outcome of a short-lived distributed activity, where strong isolation is required until the transaction completes. WS-BusinessActivity defines the Business Activity coordination type, which is appropriate to use when building applications that require a consistent agreement on the coordination of a distributed activity, where strong isolation is not feasible, and application-specific compensating actions are used to coordinate the activity. It appears to me that the WS-Transaction Framework and the Web Services Composite Application Framework (described below) are playing in more or less the same space and are not obviously compatible. That is, that they are in competition.


        BEA/IBM/Microsoft, Web Services Coordination (WSCoordination), September 2003, http://ftpna2.bea.com/pub/downloads/ws-standards-coordination.pdf
        BEA/IBM/Microsoft, Web Services Transaction (WS-Transaction), August 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/08/wstx/

        BEA/IBM/Microsoft, Web Services Atomic Transaction (WSAtomicTransaction), September 2003, http://ftpna2.bea.com/pub/downloads/ws-at-pub.pdf

Web Services Composite Application Framework (WS-CAF) - WS-CAF defines a generic framework for applications that contain multiple services used in combination (composite applications). It specifies interoperable mechanisms to set the boundaries of an activity (such as start/end, or success/failure), to create, access and manage context information, and to inform participants of changes to an activity. And it supports a range of transaction models, including simple activity scoping, single and two phase commit ACID transactions, and recoverable long running activities. The WS-CAF suite includes three specs published by Arjuna, Fujitsu, IONA, Oracle and Sun: Web Service Context (WS-CTX ) a lightweight framework for simple context management, Web Service Coordination Framework (WS-CF) a sharable mechanism that manages context augmentation and lifecycle, and Web Services Transaction Management (WS-TXM) which comprises three distinct, interoperable transaction protocols that can be used across multiple transaction managers. A new OASIS TC has recently been created to further develop the WS-CAF specifications.

WS-Policy is a grammar for specifying Web services policy assertions such as authentication schemes, transport protocol selection, privacy policy, QoS characteristics. Another Microsoft, IBM, BEA spec, not submitted yet to any standards body.

        IBM/Microsoft/BEA/SAP, Web Services Policy Assertions Language (WS-PolicyAssertions), 18 December 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/12/PolicyAssertions/
        IBM/Microsoft/BEA/SAP, Web Services Policy Attachment (WS-PolicyAttachment), 18 December 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/12/PolicyAttachment/
        IBM/Microsoft/BEA/SAP, Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy), 18 December 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/12/Policy/


WS-Addressing - provides transport-neutral addressing for Web services that work through firewalls, gateways, etc. Another spec from MS/IBM/BEA, it apparently replaces WS-Routing. I don't think it has been submitted to any standards body.

        BEA/IBM/Microsoft, Web Services Addressing (WS-Addressing), 13 March 2003, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2003/03/ws-addressing/

WS-Federation - A spec for standardizing the way companies share user and machine identities among disparate authentication and authorization systems spread across corporate boundaries. Developed by IBM/MS/BEA/RSA, I think it is at least partly in competition with the ID-WSF from the Liberty Alliance, discussed below..

        Web Services Federation Language (WS-Federation), Version 1.0, July 8, 2003, http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-fed/
        WS-Federation: Active Requestor Profile, 08 July 2003, http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-fedact/

SPML - Service Provisioning Markup Language - exchanging and administering user access rights and resource information across heterogeneous environments. How this differs from N other security specs is beyond me, but supposedly it works in conjunction with WS-Security and SAML. Currently in "public review" period at OASIS, which means it is close to being approved as a spec, it has apparently been implemented in the catalyst industry.

ID-FF - IDentity Federation Framework, from the Liberty Alliance. Defines an architecture for providing federated network identity that enables single signon functionality for a user to multiple service providers. Liberty is a major consortium that does not include MS or IBM, and the products are more or less in competition with varioius WS-* specs. I think that ID-FF is more or less along the same lines as WS-Policy. Submitted to OASIS.

ID-WSF - IDentity Web Services Framework - Another spec from the Liberty Alliance, it builds on ID-FF and provides a framework for identity based web services in a federated network identity environment. I believe that ID-WSF is pretty much in the same space, and incompatible with, WS-Federation. Detailed comparison is beyond the scope of this document, but it appears that both have a number of components for which there is no comparable function in the other, with Liberty possibly being the more fully developed. In addition, they have made different technology choices for similar functions (e.g. ID-WSF Discovery Services vs UDDI for WS-Federation.

WSRP - Web Services for Remote Portlets - Intended to provide "plug-n-play" for portals and other apps that aggregate content. Recently adopted as an OASIS standard, the players in the interop testing include BEA, IBM and Oracle. Microsoft, Sun and many others participated in the TC. This spec seems to have wide industry participation, but I have no idea how soon to expect implementation.

        OASIS, Web Services for Remote Portlets Specification, OASIS Standard, August 2003, http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/3343/oasis-200304-wsrp-specification-1.0.pdf

*** BEA Building Blocks
The following specs, developed by BEA, are available with clear Royalty Free (RF) terms.

        BEA, SOAP Conversation Protocol (SOAP Conversation) 1.0, 13 Jun 2002, http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/SOAPConversation.jsp
        BEA, WS-CallBack Protocol (WS-CallBack), 26 Feb 2003, http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/WS-CallBack-0_9.jsp
        BEA, Web Service Acknowledgement Protocol (WS-Acknowledgement), 26 Feb 2003, http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/WS-Acknowledgement-0_9.jsp
        BEA, Web Services Message Data (WS-MessageData), 26 Feb 2003, http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/WS-MessageData-0_9.jsp

*** Semantic Web
DARPA, DAML-S (and OWL-S) 0.9 Draft Release, 2003-05, http://www.daml.org/services/daml-s/0.9/
W3C, OWL Web Ontology Language Guide, W3C Candidate Recommendation 18 August 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-owl-guide-20030818/
W3C, OWL Web Ontology Language Overview, W3C Candidate Recommendation, 18 August 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-owl-features-20030818/
W3C, OWL Web Ontology Language Reference, W3C Candidate Recommendation 18 August 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-owl-ref-20030818/
W3C, OWL Web Ontology Language Semantics and Abstract Syntax, W3C Candidate Recommendation 18 August 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-owl-semantics-20030818/
W3C, OWL Web Ontology Language Test Cases, W3C Candidate Recommendation, 18 August 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-owl-test-20030818/
W3C, OWL Web Ontology Language Use Cases and Requirements, W3C Candidate Recommendation 18 August 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-webont-req-20030818/
ISO/IEC, Information Technology - Document Description and Processing Languages, The XML Topic Maps (XTM) Syntax 1.1, JTC 1/SC34 N0398, 2003-04-03, http://www.isotopicmaps.org/sam/sam-xtm/

*** SOAP Attachments
AT&T/BEA/Canon/Microsoft/SAP/ , SOAP Messages with Attachments, 1 Apr 2003, http://dev2dev.bea.com/technologies/webservices/SOAP_Messages_Attachments.jsp
W3C, SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism, W3C Working Draft, 21 July 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-soap12-mtom-20030721
IBM/Microsoft, WS-Attachments, 17 June 2002, http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-attach.html
W3C NOTE, SOAP Messages with Attachments, 11 Dec 2000, http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/NOTE-SOAP-attachments-20001211
W3C NOTE, SOAP Version 1.2 Message Normalization, 8 October 2003, http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/NOTE-soap12-n11n-20031008/

*** SOAP Bindings

IETF, Using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) in Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP), RFC 3288, http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3288.txt

*** Secure Conversations
IBM/Microsoft/VeriSign/RSA Security, Web Services Secure Conversation Language (WS-SecureConversation), Version 1.0, 18 December 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/12/ws-secure-conversation/

IBM/Microsoft/VeriSign/RSA Security, Web Services Security Policy Language (WS-SecurityPolicy), Version 1.0, 18 December 2002, http://msdn.microsoft.com/ws/2002/12/ws-security-policy/