It isn't a battle for XML as long as XML itself 
is not defined to exclude one of these.  That is 
what I mean by "XML Is Done".  Undo that and it 
will be war for sure, right, wrong, or indifferent.

It isn't naivete to pick timing and place.  It is a good 
thing to understand all sides if a battle is 
inevitable.  I don't think one is.  SOAP did not 
come to pick a fight with REST.  Both of these 
architectures are "tech".   

How the W3C expends resources is something for 
its directors to decide.  Remember, the TAG is
a technical architecture committee, not a resource 
allocation committee.  IMO, they are responsible 
for issuing opinions on the issues brought to 
them, not to design architectures.  They choose 
to express this in terms such as "safety", 
"important resources must have URIs" and so forth. 
This is of value but is not a constraint except 
insofar as an architecture is warrantied for 
well-defined qualities.

I think we all know how difficult it is to 
maintain agreements based on function calls. 
That doesn't mean it is immoral, unethical, 
whatever.  It means it is hard.  Caveat emptor. 
It is just as hard to maintain agreements 
based on message types.  It is harder if there 
are no agreements at all.

Please explain to me, "ad hoc messaging".  
I'm unclear how that works.

As to well-funded dissing, horses loathe to 
drink downstream from bears.  The quality 
of the water is important to the horse. If 
you are the rider, guide it to good water.  
If the water is ok, let it find it.  In that 
sense, yes, ignore the SOAP vs. REST arguments. 
The good news is that most of use probably 
now understand them.  Thanks to Paul, Mark, 
et al for introducing these issues.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@[...].com]

No, Len, I'm afraid it is a battle.  I think you're being remarkably
naive here.

The Web Services people are selling their stuff as what XML should be,
consuming resources at the W3C and elsewhere that might likely be better
spent on other approaches, and spending a lot of time dissing notions of
'ad hoc XML messaging.'

The question isn't whether a conflict exists.  The question is whether
to approach a well-funded well-hyped opponent with technical arguments
or to refocus on the tech and ignore the opponent.  At this point, I
thinking the latter option makes a lot more sense.

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