Web Services Architecture Working Group
06-September-2002 meeting minutes

Working Group home page · Meeting records

This is the complete version, possibly with confidential material, of the minutes.

Attendance

Present
Apple Mike Brumbelow
AT&T Mark Jones
AT&T Ayse Dilber
BEA Systems David Orchard
Boeing Company Gerald Edgar
Cisco Systems Inc Sandeep Kumar
Computer Associates Igor Sedukhin
DaimlerChrysler Research Mario Jeckle
EDS Mike Ballantyne
EDS Waqar Sadiq
Ericsson Nilo Mitra
France Telecom Shishir Garg
Fujitsu Frank McCabe
IBM Heather Kreger
Idokorro Mobile Mark Baker
IONA Steve Vinoski
IONA Eric Newcomer
Microsoft Corporation Allen Brown
MITRE Corporation James Davenport
MITRE Corporation Paul Denning
Nokia Michael Mahan
Oracle Corporation Martin Chapman
Oracle Corporation Jeff Mischkinsky
Nortel Networks Abbie Barbir
SAP Sinisa Zimek
SeeBeyond Technology Corp Ugo Corda
Software AG Michael Champion
Sterling Commerce(SBC) Suresh Damodaran
Sun Microsystems, Inc. Doug Bunting
Sun Microsystems, Inc. Mark Hapner
TIBCO Software, Inc. Scott Vorthmann
W. W. Grainger, Inc. Tom Carroll
W3C Hugo Haas
W3C David Booth
Regrets
Contivo Dave Hollander
Hewlett-Packard Company Zulah Eckert
Hewlett-Packard Company Yin-Leng Husband
IBM Chris Ferris
Intalio Inc Bob Lojek
Intel Corporation Sharad Garg
Intel Corporation Joel Munter
Ipedo Srinivas Pandrangi
Macromedia Glen Daniels
Progress Colleen Evans
Systinet Anne Thomas Manes
T-Nova Deutsche Telekom Jens Meinkoehn
webMethods, Inc. Prasad Yendluri
Absent
Artesia Technologies Dipto Chakravarty
Compaq Kevin Perkins
CrossWeave, Inc. Timothy Jones

Agenda

See agenda posted by the Chair.

Detailed minutes

skipped approval of minutes

action item: mike: get up to date on minutes, administrivia

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-------review of action items

Allen wants help with XSLT on glossary

5 dial in lines ordered, not confirmed

-------FTF agenda:

Mike solicited comments on tentative agenda

main issue: many conflicts, 1/4 members unable to attend Friday afternoon

official end time is Fri 1300, looking for ways to fill that time

Frank M: make facilities available for informal arch discussions Fri afternoon

Mark Jones: clarification of schedule: our group starts at 1300 Wed, no joint mtg in the morning with description WG

REST presentation could be done Wed AM or at the "boundary" (1100), so WSD members could attend... action to Mike C to contact Jonathan Marsh

David Booth: teleconference attendees please contact me so I can book enough lines

Suresh: any kind of video conferencing? Mike: no, share slides, etc. in advance

Hugo: I believe IRC will be available

Frank M: look into e-Beam whiteboard sharing

???: look into WebEx

Suresh: please keep topics in IRC minutes for discussion context

action: Dave & Mark: endeaver to make REST presentation materials availables

DavidB: meeting logistics info is online

MikeC: any informal collective discussion Fri PM will be captured in minutes, if possible

DavidB: Fri PM good time for educational purposes, presentations

MikeC: any critique of rough agenda? none heard

Suresh: request... summary of discussions in August?

action to MikeC... will provide early in f2f

-------- choreography WG charter

MikeC:

shortly after break, two things happened:
W3C ack of WSCI by Sun, Iona, BEA, Oracle, Intaglio
directed to this WG to consider disposition
IBM, Microsoft, BEA published several specs: BPEL4S, WS-coord, WS-transaction not formally submitted

August telecons discussed these

groundswell informal opinion: W3C (through WS-Arch) should charter a WG. Less consensus on what the charter would look like. Skeleton charter drafted informally, with fair degree of interest, no significant pushback.

what is this WG's response to WSCI, and more generally, how do we help the W3C do something constructive?

concern expressed to me that the skeleton charter is too broad & vague

opinion expressed in August:

need more focused expertise, possibility of a workshop to sort things out

concern from W3C is that this is insufficient... we need to do more, not pass the buck, we should refine the charter

question: did WS-CG meet to discuss? Is there a record of the meeting?

Hugo: yes, URL on IRC

MikeC: Coord group expressed concern that the discussion should not open up too much, Arch group should work to refine before broader discussion

???: clarifying comment: primary question is : how does orchestration overlap with coord and transaction

MikeC: our group should constrain the definition of choreography/orch and the charter of the group... scoping in general

approach of "refine as we go" was not well received by W3C mgt

Oracle: timing is critical, injection of commercial reality needed... imminent risk of submission of other spec to OASIS

Mark Jones: use-cases may help refine the scope more readily than precise definitions

Jeff: disagree with characterization as "wide open" charter. Only relevant discussion is "transactions in or out of scope"... out of scope in my opinion

Eric: agree

Process issue: Q+ is 41#, Q- is 40#

Suresh: is choreography/orch mentioned in our arch reqs doc? Are other arch reqs less important for some reason? Supposition is we are in competition with OASIS, I disagree. BPSS exists in OASIS already. There are other orchestration specs... crisis not clear. Lets proceed in orderly fashion.

Roger: I agree with Jeff... draft charter specific and understandable. Industry momentum bears out relevence of a WG. Draft charter does not highlight WSCI.

Hugo: fear people have re: vague charter is that WG will thrash. More detailed charter will avoid "tortured" analysis of charter. We should document this in the Arch doc, our primary deliverable.

MikeC, paraphrase: draft charter would be better received and more useful if we coordinate with Arch reqs

MikeC: some pushback is that this would define the "union" of all choreography issues. Lets look for the intersection, rather, and be more explicit about those parts.

DougB: worried that we've been spending time discussing outside opinions, rather than discussing our own opinions and issues.

MikeC: remember we are only the first step in the chartering process, we are getting pushback from the next group up the line

DaveO: BEA involved in both WSCI and BPEL... stated up-front that choreography was 2nd priority. We would like to see convergence of specs. We should structure a WG charter such that BPEL would be considered as a strong candidate technology. BEA would oppose any prohibition of BPEL. We must be delicate in our charter re: including and excluding existing specs. We don't want to see the wheel reinvented, with a product nothing like any of the input technologies.

MikeC: Dave, is choreography not in our current reqs doc?

Dave: it is in our use cases, but not our requirements.

Eric: Agree with DaveO re: BPEL inclusion. Lets get team together to look at convergence of BPEL and WSCI, to inform charter.

MikeC: IP issues around BPEL may cause difficulty

Jeff: agree, time-to-market is essential. Marketplace will force some resolution. Fastest way to convergence is to get the relevent people together. Is it possible to satisfy Coord WG without solving the problem? I think not. Travel agent scenario is perfectly good for capturing choreography reqs... already in hand.

MikeC: one concern is that we charter something that takes years, re: XSDL and XQuery.

Jeff: how do you decompose into simpler pieces without doing the work?

Suresh: we need to respond to market pressures, but not as we are doing now. We must put it in reqs and have debate now. Usage scenario is not our only document... we need to update the reqs doc. If we want to set up a subteam, that's good too. I think we are hurrying in without paying attention to our process.

DaveO: I tend to agree with Jeff, we need to do the work. BEA has a guy that would be right for comparing BPEL and WSCI. This is a way to get the right people in a room to do the work.

MikeC: any comments from other BPEL author companies? None.

MikeC: point of this discussion is to get this on record, officially, since August was informal.

Suresh: not opposing WG, just the haphazard way we are going about. Also, IP issues are a big issue, we must proceed on a royalty free basis.

MikeC: can somebody help us understand the IP issues around BPEL? How far could we go in deconstructing and borrowing from other specs?

DaveO: suggestion: give time for offline discussion

Dave Booth: re: IP question. Depends on licensing constraints stated. Patents protect some things, copyright does not protect ideas.

MikeC: solicit suggestions on how we can proceed productively next week

Dave Booth: any action on asking authors about their opinions re: a W3C group? None yet.

Mike Payne?: issues of IPR are interesting

MikeC: action to talk to IPR people at W3C... need to drive carefully, should know the rules of the road

Mark Baker: as AC rep, I don't think we can engineer IP issues ahead of time... better off to split this off and focus on delineating the scope of work

Scott: IPR of documents is already stated, problem is rights reserved

MikeC: I'm favorable toward technical focus

Suresh: we should invite WSCI, BPSS, and BPML authors

MikeC: we want to come up with a concrete plan at the f2f... study the specs and try to work out how we can make progress on this

Review of outstanding action items

Summary of new action items

See also the list of pending action items.


Chair: Mike Champion <[email protected]>
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