RE: Nailing down the definition of "Web services" and the scope o fWS A for the document

 
 
In an earlier mail Mike suggested:
"A Web service is an interface to an executable software agent that is
designed to be used by another software agent. A Web service is
identified by a URI, and has a definition in a language sufficient to
describe the interface to developers of client agents. A software agent
interacts with a Web service in the manner prescribed by the formal
definition, using standard protocols."

Using this defintion, CORBA objects are web services! They can have URIs
(added about three years ago), they are defined using IDL which is
sufficient to for developing client agents and they interact using
standard protocols (iiop).

I am not for one minute suggesting that CORBA objecst should be in the
set, but without a better definition they will be and i'm not sure what
use that is.

Anyone remember business objects? Nice marketing term but no one could
provide a techical defnition whereby if one were given something you can
tell whether it was one or not. I'd hate to see web services go down
this route.

Martin.

-----Original Message-----
From: www-ws-arch-request@w3.org [mailto:www-ws-arch-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Christopher B Ferris
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 10:03 AM
To: Colleen Evans
Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org; www-ws-arch-request@w3.org
Subject: Re: Nailing down the definition of "Web services" and the scope
o fWS A for the document



WSA-compliant is way too strong a term IMO. Why can't we just call it a
Web Service? 

Christopher Ferris
Architect, Emerging e-business Industry Architecture
email: chrisfer@us.ibm.com
phone: +1 508 234 3624 

www-ws-arch-request@w3.org wrote on 04/17/2003 12:20:55 PM:

> WSA-Compliant seems a bit overloaded for what we're defining.   How
about WSA-Defined or WSA-Specified? 
> Colleen 
> "Cutler, Roger (RogerCutler)" wrote: 
>  I cannot attend the telecon, but I think I have made it clear that I
feel strongly about 
> preserving the early bound scenarios that may not involve a formal XML
definition of the 
> interface.Beyond that, my opinions about your questions are:-
WSA-Compliant seems better because 
> ebXML certainly uses XML but is presumably not going to be
WSA-Compliant.- I think that an actual 
> realization of a machine processable interface description should be
optional.- I think the WS is 
> the agent and it has an interface, but I'm not too excited about this
distinction.  I trust the 
> people who are more precise about these things to keep this stuff
straight. 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Champion, Mike [mailto:Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 7:14 AM 
> To: www-ws-arch@w3.org 
> Subject: RE: Nailing down the definition of "Web services" and the
scope o f WS A for the document 
>   
>   
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Christopher B Ferris [mailto:chrisfer@us.ibm.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2003 7:43 AM 
> To: Champion, Mike 
> Cc: www-ws-arch@w3.org; www-ws-arch-request@w3.org 
> Subject: RE: Nailing down the definition of "Web services" and the
scope o f WS A for the document 
>   
>   
> I for one had the same thought, a Web service *has an* interface, it
is 
> not an "is a" relationship in my book. 
> It sounds to me like this is another issue we should discuss today in
trying to filet the "what is
> a Web service" trout.  So, the major points of discussion about the
proposed definition from the 
> editors seem to be:- What should we call a WSA-ish "Web service"?
"XML WS?"  "WSA-compliant WS?" 
> other?- How formal / machine processable must a WSA-ish WS description
be? - Is a WS an interface 
> to some service, or does the WS have an XML interface?It would be good
if people who feel strongly
> about any of these issues were to get their arguments on the virtual
table  before the telcon.