RE: [xml-dev] WSIO vs. Semantic Web - Setting the Record Straight

["Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>]

> pushed to the back of the room while these competitors
> work out a level of interoperability they are comfortable

This work has got to be done, but at this point it is more an issue of
getting everyone in the room and testing things until they work
together, rather than a standards negotiation exercise.

> MSDN.  The Jan 2001 MSDN provides a set of baseline specifications
> and the specs proposed for the Global Web Services.  RDF is
> never mentioned.  RDDL is never mentioned.  Except for WSDL

Well, bemoaning that many of the W3C specs are not critical to web
services evolution is tantamount to saying that W3C does nothing except
web services.  There are many things like XML Signatures, P3P, etc. that
are still extremely important and much work that is correctly still in
the "standards negotiation" phase.

> If the standards bodies really want interop, they better
> get ready to move fast in the rapids.  Anyone who shoots
> the rapids can tell you it requires intense focus.

I guess I don't see the overlap to the degree that you do.

> REST may be great guys.  I'm all for it.  But the specs
> the WSIO has before them don't mention it.  If you think

Neither have any W3C specs -- REST is not a religion, but the concepts
would hopefully inform any Internet-scale designs that anyone is doing.

> have.  What we need from XML, the WSIO is standardizing.

That's where I definitely disagree -- Web Services is just *one*
application of XML, and was not the first, neither will it be the last.
Many of the things W3C is working on (besides WS stuff like SOAP)
address other uses of XML.  I think that web services are hitting
deployment faster simply because the concept of "Execute some code over
there" is more straightforward and understandable by people.  Most
people can "get it" and people have been deploying systems that use XML
based on this concept even without XML-RPC or SOAP being around, so it
is something that has traction.