Hmmm, well, speaking as an academic and an open source developer AND a commercial software developer, I can say with authority that the W3C was created by big businesses specifically to prevent their own marketing departments from destroying the value inherent in the Web through their own, and their competitors', short-sighted, quarterly-revenue-driven pursuit of profits. It was not created by academics. Open source developers actively opposed the creation of a pay-to-play consortium. The only reason it is at MIT is because that's what was needed to attract the people with a clue to an underpaid job.

If we are to remain silent on this issue, then the W3C should not exist.

The Web creates more business value, every day, than has been generated by every single example of an RPC-like interface in the entire history of computers. Businesses would have to be collectively insane to place that architecture at risk just because a group of software marketing giants claims that it is the next big wave. They want people who are experts on the Web architecture to stand up and defend it when needed.

The only reason SOAP remains in the W3C for standardization is because all of the other forums either rejected the concept out of hand or refused to rubber-stamp a poor implementation of a bad idea. If this thing is going to be called Web Services, then I insist that it actually have something to do with the Web. If not, I'd rather have the WS-I group responsible for abusing the marketplace with yet another CORBA/DCOM than have the W3C waste its effort pandering to the whims of marketing consultants. I am not here to accommodate the requirements of mass hysteria.

Cheers,

Roy T. Fielding, Chairman, The Apache Software Foundation (fiel...@apache.org) <http://www.apache.org/>

Chief Scientist, Day Software 2 Corporate Plaza, Suite 150 Newport Beach, CA 92660-7929 fax:+1.949.644.5064 (roy....@day.com) <http://www.day.com/>