customized encoding and SOAP interoperability

We have a client communitcating with a Java Servlet through SOAP messages.
The SOAP implementation is our own but it does conform to the SOAP
specification. Since our response can be very verbose, we decided to
compress our messages. For certain reasons, we are unable to use the
standard encoding methods such as gZip, deflate, compress etc. We have a
customized encoding. We don't like deviating from standards but in this case
we had to.

My question is - by using a customized encoding, have we terribly
compromised SOAP interoperability? Is customized encoding a terrible thing
to do?

Currently we don't care about being interoperable with other SOAP toolkits -
but the requirement might change in the future.

Thanks,
Neela

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