Please clarify what information can be hidden behind SOAP endpoints that the information owner should expose to web interfaces and the tools mentioned and why?

Since it is unreasonable to assume all digital information is required to be web accessible, I assume there is a way to define that information is "on the web" or that it is "off the web". Then I would have to assume "unsafe methods" can violate that boundary or change "on the web" information in a way unacceptable to the information owner even if discoverable via auditing.

It seems clear that SOAP/RPC can enable information to be "off the Web" but "on the Internet" and that this can be "unsafe" or only as safe as the interface owner can make it and that this contract is individually made. The HTTP contract can be safer, but again, given tunneling and use of methods with side effects, the contract is still individual. Further, given common practices, that isn't likely to change soon if ever. So the web is possibly unsafe until the correspondents agree to safety measures and verify these. This is similar to a concept of operations agreement with a certification clause that can reference the document DC is drafting for HTTP, and would require something similar if SOAP/RPC is used.

Use of the tools is a different issue. Yes, they are useful. No, one can't require their use to be "on the web". One can require safe operations insofar as that can be specified and verified and this can be done for any architecture including one that uses SOAP/RPC. It is harder and yes, at that point, the leverage of the REST architecture and the tools come into play.

len

From: Paul Prescod [mailto:pa...@prescod.net]

Please consider this issue of "bookmarking" more closely. Bookmarking is the least of the issues. It is linking *in all of its forms*. I'm talking about XInclude, XLink, XPath, RSS, XHTML, XSLT, RDF, WebLogs and Topic Maps. These are *powerful* information combination and relation tools. But they cannot be used with information hidden behind SOAP endpoints. I would say that any service that denies its users the use of these tools is somewhat broken.