They do.  WSDL.

As for the use of resources out there, one can 
make the case for the water, but the horse chooses. 

The legal problem is what the W3C warranties. 
The political problem is not to dilute the 
so-called imprimatur of the specification 
organization by grand standing on the SOAP 
specification to the point that to make 
any more progress, SOAP vendors and their 
customers believe that they 
have to seek other authorities.

It's much easier with specifications.  Then 
the technology has to speak for itself.  Calling
these standards means the organization has to 
be the authority and that spells trouble where 
technologies are emergent.  If the authority says  
"we have a better way and we won't recognize your way" 
then the submitter is backed into a corner with 
nothing to lose and a lot to gain by going elsewhere. 
So far, they are going to their customers and their 
customers are approving.  This is exactly how 
ISO hit the skids.

IMO:  SOAP 1.2 needs to go forward.  Code is 
shipping; it is a fait accompli.  REST advocates, 
the TAG, etc., and the WGs have to spend time 
working out a RESTy SOAP given that this can 
be established as a requirement.  The education 
of the community has to continue based on clear 
and simple comparisons such as are emerging from 
these threads and the articles so when an implementor 
must choose, and they are the ones who choose for 
their customers, they do so completely aware of 
the lifecycle consequences of the architecture, 
both in the short term of implementation, and 
in the long term of support and maintenance.

What we field, we must support.  Control of 
promises is the sine qua non of good management.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Baker [mailto:distobj@[...].org]

On Wed, May 01, 2002 at 11:07:20PM +0100, Bill de hOra wrote:
>  If it's the case that this use of SOAP "*cannot*" win, what's all the
>  fuss about? Seriously.

Because there's a whole lot of resources being spent on this stuff
that could be directed towards improving and expanding the Web.

To Len; I agree with you, except most Web services proponents I've
talked to *want* to be able to gain the benefits of the Web with Web
services.

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