WS-Transfer, WS-ResourceTransfer, WS-Enumeration and WS-MetadataExchange on their way to W3C

A bit over a month ago, I mentioned my hope that WS-ResourceTransfer (WS-RT) would be allowed to rest in peace. This is apparently not to be and the specification is now on its way to W3C, along with WS-Transfer, WS-MetadataExchange and WS-Enumeration. This is not all that surprising and I had even hazarded a guess of who would join IBM in doing this. My list was IBM, CA, Fujitsu and Cisco. I got three out of four right, but Oracle replaced Cisco. The fact that the company I got wrong happens to be my employer is something I can’t really comment on, other than acknowledging the irony…

This is a very important development in the area of management standards. Some of the specifications listed here are used by WS-Management. They are also clearly intended to replace the WS-ResourceFramework stack that underpins WSDM. This is especially true of WS-RT which almost directly overlaps with WS-ResourceProperties. Users of both WS-Management and WSDM will take notice. As will those who have been standing on the side, waiting for things to stabilize…

If you are trying to relate this announcement to the WS-Management/WSDM convergence previously going on between Microsoft, IBM, HP and Intel (which is the forum in which WS-RT was originally produced), it looks like this is what the “convergence” has turned into. Except that three of the four vendors seem to have dropped out, thus my quotation marks around the word “convergence”.

The applicability of these specifications outside of the management domain seems to be assumed in this submission. It’s been often asserted but, in my mind, not yet proven. I don’t see the use of WS-RT by WS-Federation as a proof of this relevance (one of these days I’ll write a post to explain why).

It will be interesting to see how the W3C responds to this offer. The expected retort didn’t take long. If WS-RT wasn’t allowed to rest in peace, it won’t be allowed to REST in peace either. You can expect the blogosphere to light up with “WS-Transfer for RESTful applications” discussions (mostly making fun of WS-Transfer’s HTTP envy) very soon. Even though that’s just one of the many angles from which you can view this development, and not the most interesting one.

[UPDATED 2008/7/6: It took a little longer than expected, but the snarky/ironic blog posts have started: Steve, Mark, Tim, Bill, Stefan]