RE: "Web service" or "web service"

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Gudgin [mailto:mgudgin@microsoft.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 05, 2002 3:43 PM
> To: Sanjiva Weerawarana; Mark Baker; www-ws-desc@w3.org
> Subject: RE: "Web service" or "web service"
> 
> 

> 
> It was decided on the call to go for "Web Service". From the IRC log:


The WSA WG did a straw poll on our telcon yesterday and there was a 2:1
majority for "Web service."  Although obviously no one wants to "lay down in
the road" on such a non-critical issue, two fairly strong reasons emerged in
the discussion:

- In terms of grammar, "Web" should be capitalized because it is a proper
noun, i.e., it refers to the World Wide Web, and "service" is not.  (I guess
one could argue that "Web Service" is a compound proper noun, like United
States or whatever).

- In sheer pragmatic terms, at least two member companies (rather
substantial ones, to say the least) noted that they had standardized
internally on "Web service" and that there was a LOT of documentation,
marketing material, etc. that would in principle have to be revised at
substantial cost to be consistent with a different convention.

Very deep sigh :-)

Received on Friday, 6 December 2002 08:32:27 UTC