Geoff Arnold

Debating WS-*

Tim Bray continues to discuss the relevance of the so-called WS-* stack: the collection of specifications related to XML-based web services. I'm not going to dive into the technology or business issues here; however Tim referred to a piece by Dare Obasanjo which argues that WS-* Specs are like JSRs. I tried to add a comment to this, but Dare's blog engine collapsed in a mess of XML, so I'll just post it here. Hopefully you'll be able to get back to read the original piece if you're interested. [Update: It looks as if my comment made it into Dare's blog after all.]

Just out of curiosity... if WS-* are like JSRs, what's the equivalent of the JCP? Where's the process documented, and what's the governance model? The statement "A JSR is basically a way for various Java vendors to standardize on a mechanism for solving a particular customer problem" ignores the fact that it's not just any old "way"; it's a particular "way" that has been publically codified, ratified by the community, and evolved to meet the needs of participants.

And then Mike [Champion] writes, "One difference of course is that Microsoft exerts a lot more architectural influence over the WS-* stuff than Sun attempts over JSRs. I think that's generally a positive thing". Hmmm: does this mean that he and his employer were actively engaged in JSR-171, JSR-215 and so forth, arguing in favour of stronger architectural influence by Sun?

Update: Over in LooselyCoupled, there's a response to Tim et al which essentially takes the position, "let a thousand flowers bloom, let mutually consenting parties decide what kind of daisy-chains to weave". My response is that this is fine until cookie-cutter garland tools start stamping out the same bloody flower patterns everywhere....