ebXML call

[Mark Little <mcl@arjuna.com>]

Owing to personal commitments (dealing with a 7 year old throwing up all
day!) I won't be able to make the ebXML teleconference. (And believe me I'd
love to attend compared to what I'm going to have to deal with ;-)

However, I've talked briefly to Alastair and Peter and I think we are in
broad agreement on some of the issues to do with "interworking". I also
agree with the email Alastair sent round earlier.

It may be sacrilege to say this, but I think that ebXML stands a good chance
of being one of the many X-based protocols that doesn't have as much take-up
as its proponents think. Unlike BTP, which has a (relatively) rich history
of useage outside web services (I can point to many instances of roughly
equivalent extended transaction functionality that have been in used for
decades) and therefore has a proven background and requirement, I'm not 100%
convinced that ebXML can say the same: true B2B is still a virgin territory.
As such, I wouldn't be surprised if ebXML went through several revisions
over the coming months/years, not to fix "bugs" but simply to add required
functionality or remove functionality. Tying BTP to ebXML, therefore, would
reduce its take up IMO. As we have said from the outset, there are good
reasons why we do not want to mandate a specific mapping of BTP, and saying
"you must use ebXML" is obviously going against this. Saying "you may", and
looking at how this could happen is a useful piece of work (as long as doing
so does not delay the adoption date of BTP).

All the best,

Mark.

----------------------------------------------
Dr. Mark Little (mark@arjuna.com)
Transactions Architect, HP Arjuna Labs
Phone +44 191 2064538
Fax   +44 191 2064203