RE: [Action - Prateek]: Should the Bindings Group select either t he HTTP or SOAP protocol bindings?

["Eve L. Maler" <eve.maler@sun.com>]

At 01:12 PM 10/1/01 -0400, Mishra, Prateek wrote:
>(1) Do we require BOTH a HTTP binding and a SOAP binding in SAML 1.0?
>RESPOND: Yes/No
>
>(2a) If yes, which binding is going to be Mandatory-to-Implement?
>RESPOND: HTTP/SOAP 1.1
>
>(2b) If no, which binding is of interest to you?
>RESPOND: HTTP/SOAP 1.1/another proposal

I have a concern that's IPR-related.  SOAP 1.1 (the W3C Note) has some IPR 
statements attached that seem to make its status unclear:

   http://www.w3.org/Submission/2000/05/

Many of the statements promise licensing of any essential patents only 
"upon adoption of this contribution as a Standard" (or similar), but SOAP 
1.1 is obviously not going to be adopted as-is because that's not how the 
W3C system works, and SOAP 1.2 isn't cooked yet either.  Also, several of 
the statements offer licensing that might require royalties to be paid 
(though I don't know of any disclosures of essential patents...yet).

I have calls in to W3C people, and also some folks who are experienced with 
the the process ebXML underwent in order to adopt SOAP technology, to find 
out how "encumbered" this makes SOAP.  (Does anyone on this list have more 
information than I currently do?) If there are problems in this regard, 
then I would be concerned about making SOAP 1.1 be the only 
mandatory-to-implement binding.

         Eve
--
Eve Maler                                    +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Center   eve.maler @ sun.com