Re: SOAP and the Web architecture

Larry Masinter wrote:

> # What do you mean by "support" and "requires something"?  If SOAP requires
> # that some, maybe even all software, change 1 parameter, does that count as
> # "not supported"?
>
> Yes. Otherwise it would be trivial to change SOAP to use another
> port (or, for that matter, another protocol). Almost all firewall
> software can easily be configured to change the 1 parameter to
> "allow outbound TCP connections on port 5049".

Larry, dammitall and yet respectfully:  have you ever in the last few years
tried to actually sell a piece of commercial software which involved you
requiring the customer to reconfigure their firewall to allow a different port
in or out?  Maybe you have and I'm wrong --- and btw I agree with you, the TCP
port space *should* ideally denote distinct protocols with distinct semantics
--- but practically speaking, it's just not speaking practically.

Reuse and / or abuse of port 80 has huge economic incentives at this point in
time.  Those sequestered in their ivory towers would do well to step out, smell
the air, and recognize this.  The question at this point should be shifting from
whether or not to abuse port 80 towards how best to utilize the
sufficiently-general semantics HTTP provides and the modeling paradigm it
suggests to accomplish what you want to accomplish;  i.e., if we must all use
port 80, let's learn to use it appropriately rather than abuse it.

jb

Received on Wednesday, 29 August 2001 02:33:43 UTC