Messaging without SOAP? (was RE: new editor's draft of WSA availa ble)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hao He [mailto:Hao.He@thomson.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 1:57 AM
> To: 'Christopher B Ferris'; www-ws-arch@w3.org
> Subject: RE: new editor's draft of WSA available
> 
> 

> that in many cases, SOAP messaging is not necessary at all.  
> People are just
> happy to get XML from a URL without any SOAP packaging.  This 
> is actually
> fine for many use cases (especially for query type of 
> services).  I hope
> that messaging without SOAP can also become part of the document.

Here's what I would suggest saying about this somewhere early in the
document:

"Our definition of the term "Web Services" does not presuppose the use of
SOAP as a packaging format or a processing model.  Nor does it presuppose
the use of WSDL as a service description language.  There are, and will be
in the future, plenty of "web services" that use raw HTTP as a data transfer
protocol and some mutually agreed-upon XML format as the message content.
The Web Services *reference architecture* does, however, assume that the
higher levels of the web services protocol stack are built on the foundation
of SOAP and WSDL.  

This "blessing" of SOAP and WSDL is not logically necessary, since some
other mechanism could be defined to gather XML message components into a
single package, and other description mechanisms [mention DAML-S ??] could
be used instead of WSDL. Perhaps in the long run, other technologies will
supplant SOAP and WSDL, and it is not the intent of the WSA to discourage
research and experimentation in these areas. On the other hand, the WSA WG
believes that a common foundation is a *practical* necessity for the
industry to move forward with additional web services functionality,
including security, choreography, etc.  Thus, the WSA reference architecture
builds on SOAP and WSDL as the basis for messaging and description.
Specifications that conform to the WSA reference architecture MUST use SOAP
and WSDL when appropriate."

Or something like that ...

Received on Tuesday, 29 October 2002 18:27:54 UTC