Re: soap 1.0 a final standard???

Duane,

Short answer:
SOAP 1.0 has been superseded by SOAP 1.1. SOAP 1.1 is not a formal standard,
and there is no effort in place to standardize SOAP 1.1. Even so, SOAP 1.1
is the de facto standard. W3C is defining a standard XML protocol called
SOAP 1.2. This effort used SOAP 1.1 as a starting point, but SOAP 1.2 is
substantially different from SOAP 1.1.

Long answer:

SOAP 1.0 was written by Developmentor, Microsoft, and UserLand. In early
2000, they recruited IBM and Lotus to join the fun, and they jointly
produced SOAP 1.1. In May 2000, this spec was submitted [2] to W3C by the
authors and some of their allies (Ariba, Commerce One, Compaq, HP, IONA, and
SAP). W3C subsequently published SOAP 1.1 as a W3C Note [2]. A W3C Note is
not an approved standard. From the status section of the specification:

  "This document is a NOTE made available by the W3C for
  discussion only. Publication of this Note by W3C indicates
  no endorsement by W3C or the W3C Team, or any W3C Members.
  W3C has had no editorial control over the preparation of
  this Note. This document is a work in progress and may be
  updated, replaced, or rendered obsolete by other documents
  at any time."

SOAP 1.1 is in it's final state -- it won't change. There is no effort to
turn SOAP 1.1 into a formal standard. Instead, there is an effort going on
to develop a new standard based on SOAP 1.1. This new standard is called
SOAP 1.2.

W3C formed the XML Protocol Working Group [3] in September 2000 to develop a
formal SOAP standard. Three years after the initial publication of SOAP 1.1,
the XML Protocol Working Group is very close to releasing the final SOAP 1.2
standard. They published a Candidate Recommendation [4] in December. The
final W3C Recommendation (W3C's name for a standard) should be published
within the next two to three months. The SOAP Primer provides a section [5]
that describes the differences between SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2. (Given the
differences, I think it would have been more appropriate to call the new
specification SOAP 2.0, but let's not go there.) Some vendors have added
preliminary implementations of SOAP 1.2 [6], but these aren't product
quality yet.

Now, keep in mind that the IT world hasn't been sitting around twiddling its
thumbs waiting for W3C to produce a standard. There are dozens of products
out there [7] that implement SOAP 1.1. So even though it has no formal
status as a standard, SOAP 1.1 is the current de facto standard for Web
services. Challenges exist surrounding this specification, though. There are
reasons why it's a good idea to put a specification through a rigorous
standardization process. SOAP 1.1 has lots of ambiguous features, and these
ambiguities result in interoperability issues. That's why the vendors
started WS-I -- to help clarify the SOAP 1.1 spec, and to define a set of
constraints and guidelines that make interoperability easier. The vendors
are now working to ensure that their products support the WS-I Basic Profile
[8].

[1] http://www.w3.org/Submission/2000/05/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/
[3] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/
[4] http://www.w3.org/TR/soap12-part1/
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/CR-soap12-part0-20021219/#L4697
[6] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/2/03/soap1.2implementation.html
[7] http://www.soapware.org/directory/4/implementations
[8] http://www.ws-i.org/Profiles/Basic/2003-03/BasicProfile-1.0-BdAD.html

Regards,
Anne

Duane Douglas asked on 04/15/03 02:24 PM:
>
> hi everyone,
>
> can someone please tell me if soap 1.0 is a finalized standard?  if it
> isn't, does anyone know when it is expected to become a finalized
> standard?
>
> tia
>
> Duane Douglas
> Computer Consultant
> mailto:[email protected]
>