[wsia][wsia-requirements][R301]

["Timothy N. Jones" <tim@crossweave.com>]

Currently reads:

  WSIA Web Services must be self-describing, making it possible for
Consumers to use them with minimal human intervention. Addition: capture the
idea of a spectrum of self-description. Debate: CW, TJ.

Certain component models include the notion of introspection, where all
components in the system support a fundamental, minimal interface.  One of
the operations on this base interface is to return a list of the other
interfaces supported by the component.  Sometimes a related operation
determines whether the component implements a specified interface.  This is
a powerful construct which would seem to be useful for our work (where the
interfaces might be represented as WSDL portTypes/bindings).

Suggested replacement:

  WSIA Web Services must be self-describing, making it possible for
Consumers to use them with minimal human intervention.  Given a generic
reference to a WSIA Web Service, it must be possible for a Consumer to
obtain a description of its full WSIA-related capabilities.  It must also be
possible for a Consumer to determine whether the service supports a specific
WSIA-related capability.

Tim