- From: Mark Baker <distobj@acm.org>
- Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:14:14 -0500 (EST)
- To: Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com (Champion, Mike)
- Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org
Mike, > FTP has been mentioned -- I think we'd agree an FTP server is not a "web > service" even though it has a URI, is invoked by a standard protocol, and > can be called by an application. I'd say it's not a web service because the > content of the result is not interpreted by most applications, or "processed > in a meaningful way." I respectfully disagree. Using an example, what if the file that is retrieved is a WSDL document? > Likewise, a random web page is not a web service even though it has a URI > and is invoked by HTTP, for the same reason. A web browser does not process > the content returned by an HTTP server in a meaningful way. [Yeah, I need > help on what "meaninful" means ...this is vague, but gets to the essence of > what a web service is] Yup. 8-) I consider any document that has any information other than UI layout/rendering to be "meaningful" in this context. But that includes pretty much all HTML pages too, since HTML includes many features which are more than just UI; "address", for example. > Anyway, I think we'd make more progress toward either coming up with an > acceptable definition of "web service" OR defining the requirements for a > "web service architecture" if we think through some of these corner cases. In a small group, sure. In the WSAWG, I don't personally believe so. They're really good examples. Too good, in fact. I don't believe that a group of this size could reach a concensus view at that level of detail, at this point in time. I'd prefer to start top-down, and then iterate the definition as we go, if required. MB -- Mark Baker, Chief Science Officer, Planetfred, Inc. Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA. mbaker@planetfred.com http://www.markbaker.ca http://www.planetfred.com
Received on Thursday, 28 February 2002 22:10:35 UTC