[business-transaction] Notes from the call on WS-T/WS-c

[William Z Pope <zpope@pobox.com>]

  [Note] I took only cursory notes during the discussion so some of
  this is from memory.  Apologies for errors, corrections or additions
  are welcome.

2002-08-21 OASIS BTP TC conference call

On the call:
  Alan Davies, SeeBeyond
  Pyounguk Cho, Iona
  Keith Evans, HP
  Bill Cox, BEA
  Mark Little, HP
  Mark Potts, TalkingBlocks
  Bill Flood, Sybase
  Bill Pope, W Z Pope consulting
  Farrukh Najmi, Sun
  Doug Bunting, Sun
  Mike Leznar, Choreology
  Anne Thomas Manes, Systinet
  Sazi Temel, BEA

Agenda:

  WS-Transaction and WS-Coordination announcement by BEA, IBM, and
  Microsoft.  What does this mean for BTP?

  Special thanks to Bill Cox for being on this call.  Bill has been a
  very active member of the BTP TC and is one of the authors of the
  WS-Transaction spec.


Outcome:

  - Participate in the current comment period by sending comments to
    the spec authors.

  - As a committee put together a formal response, primarily
    consisting of a comparison of BTP with WS-Transaction and
    WS-Coordination.  The email from Krishna Sankar contains an
    initial analysis from Ricky Ho.

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/business-transaction/200208/msg00022.ht
ml

  - Bill Cox indicated that he would forward the FAQ for the new
    specifications to the BTP main list.


Discussion:

  Mark Little stated that the TC comparison should not include
  WS-Coordination.   See the email discussion

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/business-transaction/200208/msg00029.ht
ml

  The concerns raised during the discussion were:
  - Is there going to be IPR encumberances on WS-T or WS-C that would
    result in royalties or other fees?
  - When would the specs be brought to a standards body?
  - Which standards body (or bodies) would the specs go to?
  - Are there real technical differentiators between BTP and
    WS-T/WS-C?
  - Will this enable the market by demonstrating the interest of the
    largest industy players or would this delay the market waiting for
    the completion of these new specifications?   Point is made that
    BTP is much futher along than the WS-T/WS-C combination.

  Under questioning :) Bill Cox stated that there were specific use
  cases that BTP did not support that were requirements for the WS-T
  authoring companies.  He could not say what those were at this
  time.

  The general tone of the call was that we all knew something would
  happen by virtue of the fact that IBM had declined to participate in
  BTP.  Now that it is here let's all take a look at it and see what
  it is.

  Bill Pope raised the question about whether IBM and Microsoft acting
  in concert was good for the industry and/or good for the technology
  consumers.

  There was discussion about whether there was going to be opportunity
  for companies or individuals other than those from BEA, IBM, and
  Microsoft to participate in setting standards for Web Service
  transaction and coordination specifically and generally whether
  there was room for anyone other than IBM and Microsoft to influence
  any future web services standards.

  The question was raised as to whether there should be one
  transaction coordination spec or two.  Interoperability is better
  served by having one standard.  There are features in both that are
  absent from the other.  If the specs can not be aligned for
  technical or political reasons should BTP continue.

  There was a suggestion of alignment of BTP with ebXML.

  Bill Flood asked if OASIS (felt to be the likely landing place for
  the specifications) could/would do anything to force alignment.
  Generated some general discussion of OASIS charter and working
  methods.  Lead to some further discussion of IPR issues and the IPR
  policies of OASIS, W3C, and WS-I.  It was accepted that OASIS would
  not force alignment.

Regards,
=bill

zpope@pobox.com