Advanced Web Services & client/server

Hi all,

I just wanted to toss out a comment about the "Advanced Web Services"[1]
paper that several members have authored.  It's certainly possible that
I'm misinterpreting the intent - and if I am I apologize - but it seems
to me as though the paper is suggesting that the Web (and/or REST) is not
already peer-to-peer.  If that is what it's suggesting, then I have to
disagree.

Specifically, the paper seems to assume that "client/server", which REST
builds upon, refers to software rather than roles.  i.e. that there is
a piece of software which shall forever play the client role (e.g.
browser), and a piece of software which shall forever play the server
(e.g. Web server) role.  This is not the case.  REST only depends on
roles; i.e. that in any given transaction, there is an initiator and
a terminator.  Software like that provided by KnowNow or my company,
which embeds a Web server into a Web browser (or vice versa 8-), has
already demonstrated that REST works well for peer-to-peer.

I'm certainly in agreement that we need more data flowing from Web
servers to Web clients, I just don't think we need any new architectural
work to enable it.

Thanks.

Perhaps we can talk about this at the f2f - but I wanted to get the
comment out on the public list too.

 [1] http://users.rcn.com/geoff2/aws1.0.pdf

MB
-- 
Mark Baker, CTO, Idokorro Mobile (formerly Planetfred)
Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.               [email protected]
http://www.markbaker.ca        http://www.idokorro.com