WS-* It's all your fault

The W3C, you know, that group that "develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential", recently published its Web of Services for Enterprise Computing Workshop Report:

At the Web Services workshop in 2001, the approach of having a stack of solutions was appealing and we decided to spin up lots of groups to build these specifications.

Four paragraphs later:

However, the road to paradise has also been littered with the Web/REST vs. Web Services battles...

Now that's funny, it appears that if it weren't for the RESTafarians the whole WS-* thing would have worked out fine. In case you think I'm reading too much into it, here's another quote:

The basic nature of HTTP authentication has been a constant thorn in the side of the REST faithful.

Ouch. I might be offended if I thought it mattered.

hmmm. Joe if I remember you are an employee of a company part of WS-*. It would be bad because of that to say that it is your company is characterized by only one way of thinking. It is the same for W3C, there are members inside going the REST way and some going the WS-*, some in between. There is diversity. IBM has submitted a position paper at the workshop. http://www.w3.org/2007/02/wsec-minutes.html#item07

Posted by Karl Dubost, W3C on 2007-06-20

"hmmm. Joe if I remember you are an employee of a company part of WS-*."

Karl - from http://bitworking.org/news/bio/:

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions."

Instead of muddying things, perhaps you have a substantial objection? Or maybe you can help persuade the consortium's members that the architectural basis for the WWW is not a religious artifact, which is a dull rhetorical trick in itself.

Posted by Bill de hOra on 2007-06-20

Bill, I like what Joe publishes most of the time and I know that he is expressing his personal opinions on it. I didn't point out that at all. I said "IBM has multiple views on the topic and so W3C has." There will be Members of W3C who are all for REST, those who are all the WS-*, and all the shades in between. So let's express an objection ;) I always found a bit difficult to understand the W3C characterization as an entity when it is the work of a part of the W3C community. There is diversity and discussions. W3C exists because of this diversity and frictions. And bear with me, I have no W3C religious beliefs. I happen to like things like XSL and CSS at the same time. I see values in some part of WS-* even if I'm on the side of Joe Gregorio for REST. (And he knows it with my other idendity (Karl - La Grange).)

Posted by Karl Dubost, W3C on 2007-06-20