WS-RA issue 9700 disposition

Hi Antoine,

Thanks for submitting the issue. The WG discussed this and decided to close this issue with no action.

The compliance section of every specification states that an optional element of a request MUST be able to be handled by a server, unless the specification has specific text allowing it as a server option. Hence, the service is required to support the Content attribute.

The WG felt that since the specification currently states [1] that when the Content attribute is not present it defaults to any content type. This allows a client to NOT use the Content attribute that would allow the service to send back the metadata in any content type/format. Hence, there is no need for a fault for the service to indicate it does not support a
particular content type. Thus, a profile could remove the use of Content attribute by a client allowing a service to return any content type.

Further, if the client wants a particular content type or format, it can request that by specifying that in the GetMetadata request.
Please let us know if you have any questions.

Thank you.

[1] "When not present the default value is "http://www.w3.org/2002/ws/ra/edcopies/ws-mex/Content/Any".