[Incubator] comments on the SOAP question?

[jo at frot.org]

hello, i figured this was the easiest way to reach all the PSC chairs. 

In Europe both at the legislation and standards body levels, there is
discussion about whether SOAP should be made mandatory for "SDI" work.

Mandatory SOAP (for WMS, WFS, WCS etc) is what's being proposed by
expert groups, composed of researchers, and industry reps. 
Both the European Commission and CEN, the European ISO equivalent, 
are asking around for feedback, commentary, experiences, use cases etc
from developers and end users. 

It would be invaluable to have opinions specially from PSCs on behalf
of projects that could be sent to the Commission and to CEN.
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/SOAP would be a good place to write a
para or two, or email to me or Piergiorgio Cipriani pg.cipriani at gmail.com

It seems likely that all W*S servers and clients will need to add SOAP
support or be at a disadvantage to those that have it, whether or not 
it actually gets mandated in law that SOAP must be used.
Proprietary projects are likely to be quick off the block as there is
more involvement in pushing SOAP through the OGC and the INSPIRE
expert groups. 

I noted with interest recently that SOAP and WSDL and the related
stack are among the *very few* non-MS-software-specific protocols
covered by the "Microsoft Open Specification Promise". 

SOAP is also toted in association with GeoRM (nee GeoDRM), in fact 
da GeoRM voraussichtlich nur für SOAP definiert wird. So we look
forward to those GeoRM-enabled e-commerce services for data access.
The "pro" lobby for building this on a SOAP basis is potent, the
decision-makers are soliciting real-world opinions and advice.
If you have some, please help by offering them.
http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS_SDIC


jo
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