(February 14, 2002) - The man who created the first server, Web browser, and the WWW in general - Tim Berners-Lee - was quick to respond to our story yesterday ("If Only Santa Had Listened To Those Web Services Experts...").

As its Director, Berners-Lee is the key driving force behind the World Wide Web Consortium's role as an open forum of companies and organizations - with the mission "to lead the Web to its full potential." It simply isn't fair of anyone, in his view, to characterize either the W3C or himself personally as being in any way inattentive to the software development world's thirst for standards to undergird the new Web services paradigm.

In particular, the two Internet technologists who publicly wrote to Santa "all we want for Christmas is a WSDL Working Group" ought to have been well aware that WSDL 1.1 had in the run-up to Christmas been very actively discussed within W3C, says Janet Daly, head of communications for the consortium.

Here's the full story, as recounted by Daly herself. The W3C held a Web Services Workshop in April 2001, she explains, where 64 papers were accepted. "These papers reflected a wide range of views and definitions of Web services. In other words, it was a brainstorming session with little technical consensus. This is not surprising for a Workshop, and while there were diverse opinions expressed, it was clear there was interest."

"When the first draft Activity Proposals arrived in late July," Daly continues, "from two groups of W3C Members, they could not have been more different - either technically, or with regards to IPR mode. One draft proposal was to more or less accept WSDL 1.1 as-is and agree to an IPR mode that would permit fees to be charged for patents essential for its implementation. The other draft proposal was for a more radical technical evaluation of the problems WSDL claims to solve, and develop a spec with an IPR mode that was Royalty-free; that is, one that would not permit fees to be charged."

At this point, Daly emphasizes, Tim Berners-Lee was personally very much involved. "Tim then sent mail to the W3C Membership (the Advisory Committee or AC), to encourage discussion of the two proposals. And discuss they did. The technical views were leaning towards WSDL, but not a straight rubberstamping. The numbers ran slightly higher than 5 - 1 in favor of Royalty-Free Working Groups in this area."

"The final proposal, put together by the W3C Technical team based on feedback from the AC," continues Daly, "was sent to them for review at the end of October. More discussion and comments followed. All comments were considered; some were incorporated and others were not."

The final proposal, Daly repeats, was at the end of its review at the time the two Internet technologists, Martin Gudgin and Tim Ewald, wrote their public letter to Santa Claus asking for a WSDL Working Group for Christmas. "So it's clear that Martin and Tim would know that it was on the way." (Gudgin and Ewald are both members of the W3C's XML Schema Working Groups.)

In other words, a storm in a teacup. W3C isn't dragging its feet over WSDL. Besides, there is a Web Services Activity at W3C, announced in January. (The homepage for the activity is www.w3.org/2002/ws/ and it launched with three Working Groups, one devoted to Web Services Architecture, a second to Web Services Description and the third to the XML Protocol.)

"All three of these Working Groups work in an explicit Royalty-Free IPR mode," says Daly, adding, "More are to come."

"If you consider that signing documents is important," she notes, "or that XML is critical to 'Web services,' then we've been doing this work for about six years. W3C includes its work in XML and XML Schema, XML Signature, XML Encryption, and XML Key management as essential components to what is currently marketed as Web services."

In case anyone thought that Berners-Lee and Daly were somehow alone at W3C in speaking to this issue, Tim Bray - co-editor of the XML 1.0 specification and the related Namespaces in XML, and who serves as co-chair of the W3C XML Syntax Working Group - has also recently stated that the too-rapid ratification of standards simply isn't what the W3C is set up for. If Microsoft, IBM, BEA, HP, Intel, and the fifty or so other members of the newly established Web Standards Interoperability Organization "want to ship this stuff as specified, they can do this - it's a free economy," Bray has said, adding: "But if they want the W3C imprimatur, there has to be some process and thought and time."

Janet Daly too stresses that W3C isn't there merely to "rubberstamp" specifications introduced by major industry vendors or anyone else. They first need to be properly and analytically discussed. "When the technical problem is simple," she observes, "and everyone agrees on a solution, consensus is easy to reach. When a technical problem is complex, and there are many proposals and approaches to take, reaching consensus takes time."

It wasn't a question of W3C having neglected to "fasttrack" WSDL 1.1, she continues. "W3C does design and standardization work in tandem; it doesn't rubberstamp. The cornerstone of W3C's work is reaching technical consensus with repeated review and implementation experience. W3C does this by reviewing areas for technical work, discussing approaches, scope, and deliverables."

What about WS-I and how it relates to W3C, WSJ News Desk asked Daly, who was speaking to us at the direct request of Tim Berners-Lee.

Daly is forthright: "Regarding WS-I, their Web site states that they're making profiles from existing specs. Some are standards, like XML Schema. Some are standards work in progress (SOAP), and some are industry initiatives. It doesn't look as though this is a competitor to W3C, as they are choosing specs, not building them. At first glance, it looks more like a complement to W3C work."

"That said," she concludes, "they're barely a week old. We'll all get to see what is produced."