W3C should get back to its core business: the Web

Friday, February 09, 2007

Nick Gall had a very interesting position paper on the W3C web site on why WS-* services are web services "in name only" (WINO, anyone?). Nick's analysis comes down to the observation that "W3C should leave the work on standardizing the WS-* middleware architecture to the middleware vendors and shift its focus to standardizing aspects of Web architecture that make it easier to apply to "application to application" scenarios".

I do agree with Nick's observation that probably WS-* web services should have been called XML Middleware Services (XMS). His key objection against using "web" in "WS-* web services" is the following:
"WS-* either ignores or violates the most important architectural concept of the Web: the Web is composed of resources identified by URIs[...] Nowhere in the vast multitude of WS-* specifications or the articles or papers describing them is there any imperative or even any emphasis that a Web Service should return an XML document that is populated references to other Web resources, ie URIs. But it is a fundamental principle of the Web that good Web resources don't "dead end" the Web; instead, they return representations filled with URIs that link to other Web resources [...] Just look at some of the XML industry standards like ACCORD or OAGIS: few if any elements contain URIs. It is quite clear both in theory and in practice that WS-*-style Web Services represent a "dead end" for the Web".

I must say that I did not fully grasp the "dead end" part. Nevertheless, probably the people that have been working on WS-* specs did understand this, as services in an SOA are often called.... endpoints.

Overall I do agree with Nick's observations, as I know they are rooted in his perception that REST is a better way for "web" services in the true meaning of the word, a perception which I share.

The bottom line is that I think W3C has entered a dead-end street with the WS-* specs (and they probably know it!), and that they should get back to their core business, from which its name (World Wide Web Consortium) was derived: the Web. Focus on the IFaPs again: Identifier (URIs), Formats (XML) and Protocols (HTTP). Forget about application models such as WS-*. Drop insane ideas like Binary XML, and leave the creation of standards for middleware that happen to (mis)use the Web to vendors that want to make a buck out of it. All of a sudden it will become clear again why there is the W3C, and why there are standardization committees like OASIS, and how they differ.

Categories: W3C, standardization, REST, web-architecture, SOA, web-services, IFaPs