Microsoft’s position on resolution of issue 6398 and the related formal objection

I like to clarify Microsoft’s position on resolution of issue 6398 [1] and the related formal objection.

The submitted version of WS-Transfer allows the body element of a SOAP message to directly contain a resource representation. The resolution to issue 6398 defined multiple wrapper elements around the resource representation so that WSDL descriptions of such messages would conform to WS-I Basic Profiles.  However, the need to conform to WS-I Basic Profiles could have been easily achieved by defining a single wrapper element regardless of which WS-Transfer message it would appear in.

Defining multiple wrapper elements, that is, requiring that the name of the first child element match the WS-Addressing action makes ambiguous the role of the first child element in defining the verb used for routing messages.  Implementers could incorrectly dispatch using the first child element as the verb rather than support the WS-Addressing action as the verb.  This unnecessary replication of information in a SOAP message may decrease interoperability.

As a matter of principle, Microsoft disagrees with the technical decision made by the WG to resolve issue 6398, so we affirm our formal objection. However, Microsoft can live with the decision made by the WG so we do not want the formal objection to delay progress toward Recommendation status.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you.

[1] http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=6398