Purpose of this list

As mentioned in the test message, this mailing list is dedicated to
discussion of Web description languages based on URI/IRI and HTTP, and
aligned with the Web and REST Architecture. Unlike WSDL (Web Services
Description Language), such languages are not targeted towards
description of Web Services [1].

For a description that can describe Web Services and Web/HTTP, people
should look at WSDL 2.0 [2], that provides bindings for SOAP 1.2 over
HTTP 1.1, as well as HTTP 1.1 only.

Here are some readings (in chronological order):

http://www.prescod.net/rest/wrdl/wrdl.html
http://www.markbaker.ca/2003/05/RDF-Forms/
http://www.mnot.net/blog/2003/12/07/webdesc
http://dev.gauldong.net/mambo/content/view/29/65/
http://recycledknowledge.blogspot.com/2005/05/resedel.html
http://weblogs.java.net/blog/mhadley/archive/2005/05/introducing_wad.html
http://www.pacificspirit.com/blog/2005/05/20/wdl_web_description_language

I probably missed some.

Finally, I'd like to mention that work on Web description languages is
not within the scope of an existing W3C Activity, ie don't expect a W3C
Recommendation out of this discussion for the moment. Of course, if
there is enough momentum, one could propose the creation of a Group at
some point.

Regards,

Philippe

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-ws-gloss-20040211/#webservice
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl20-primer/