PROPOSAL: Drop set-attribute and get-attribute operation styles

I'd like to propose that we drop the set-attribute and get-attribute
operation styles.

This is motivated by a change in how IBM views the relationship
between state and services. In the past, we had envisioned a 
rather tight or close relationship between a service and the
state it may manipulate. We've evolved our thinking on that and
now believe that services may operate on one or more resources,
but that the service and the resources (state) it operates on are
inherently distinct entities. 

Based on this, the approach for attributes that we advocated before
does not make sense or is at best unnecessary. We no longer see
the need for it and do not intend to support them. We believe
there are better ways to express the metadata about the 
resources the service manipulates.

We also believe that the new refined view of the relationship
between services and resources needs to be reflected in the 
attribute user community, in particular GGF and WSDM. We're
working to do that via our reps in those groups.

Sanjiva.

Received on Thursday, 30 October 2003 14:22:44 UTC