Charter comments: SOAP 1.1

Here's what we're roughly thinking of for WSDL 2.0 charter review:

The WSDL 2.0 charter should include provision for a SOAP 1.1 binding.  While
we understand much of the motivation for not including SOAP 1.1 - that SOAP
1.1 is a W3C Note only and the desire to simplify WSDL 2.0 scope for
schedule and other reasons - we believe that this could harm the adoption of
WSDL 2.0 and even SOAP 1.2.

We believe that companies will be deploying both SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2
solutions. Unfortunately, WSDL 1.1 does not have a very widespread or
interoperable mechanism for description SOAP 1.2. We have already heard
customer pushback on SOAP 1.2 because of this deficit.  That implies that
WSDL 2.0 is the solution for those wanting to describe SOAP 1.2 deployment.
But it is unlikely that customers, and all their business partners that they
communicate using SOAP 1.1 will all upgrade to SOAP 1.2 and WSDL 2.0 at the
same time. This means they will be deploying SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2, and
described by WSDL 1.1 and WSDL 2.0 respectively.

We believe that requiring both WSDL 1.1 and WSDL 2.0 to co-exist in customer
and their partner sites will prove too high a barrier for many customers to
adopt WSDL 2.0. We also believe that even if someone supports WSDL 2.0 and
SOAP 1.2 their business partners will still continue to use SOAP 1.1 as the
transition to SOAP 1.2 will take time.  We are also seeing that
specifications are being published that have explicit support for SOAP 1.1
and SOAP 1.2. further evidence of a mixture of deployment in the industry.
Therefore it is important that it be possible to describe SOAP 1.1
communications in WSDL 2.0 so that a WSDL 2.0 compliant system can continue
to interact with existing partners.

There are a few areas of including a SOAP 1.1 binding that need further
work.  The first is the SOAP 1.1 IPR.  It isn't clear whether a description
of a SOAP 1.1 message necessarily requires that SOAP 1.1 IPR and WSDL 2.0 be
coupled.  Assuming for a moment that they are coupled, it may be necessary
to obtain adequate SOAP 1.1 IPR rights to enable WSDL 2.0 to describe such
services.

The second area is schedule, which is obviously directly related to the
design of the functionality.  There are various solutions that have been
discussed within the WG, ranging from copying WSDL 1.1 SOAP 1.1 binding and
copying the WSDL 2.0 SOAP 1.2 binding to more elaborate solutions.  Given
the current schedule, we think the WG might need to delivery it on a
separate timeframe than the HTTP and SOAP 1.2 bindings.

The third area is the form of the binding.  This binding could be a Note, it
could be part of the Part III: Bindings document, it could be a new bindings
document, it could be optional, it could be mandatory, etc.  We prefer to
leave the exact structure of this binding in relation to other bindings
open.  We also prefer that this be an optional binding.  We further preferr
that the binding be normative and on the Recommendation track.  Our
rationale is that any implementation that does support SOAP 1.1, we'd like
to have some assurance of interoperability which can realistically only be
guaranteed through the Recommendation track.

Cheers,
Dave

Received on Thursday, 22 January 2004 12:57:51 UTC