[wsia] Questions around Relationship between WSIA and WSRP

Title: Message

Hi Everybody,

Since the initial meeting of the OASIS WSRP committee 
is next week, I wanted to bring up to discussion the relationship between the 
WSIA committee and the WSRP committee. Naturally, this will be part of the 
discussions next week and since there is a significant overlap between the 
individuals attending both committees, this will probably be an interesting 
discussion. Yet, I thought it might help to bring up some the questions ahead of 
time, so that by the time we all meet we will have had some time 
to come up with an opinion.

The stated goals of the two committees 
are:

WSIA. Create an XML and web services 
centric framework for interactive web applications. The designs must achieve two 
main goals: enable businesses to distribute web applications through multiple 
revenue channels, and enable new services or applications to be created by 
leveraging existing applications across the Web. 

WSRP. Create an XML and web services 
standard that will allow for the 'plug-n-play' of: portals, other intermediary 
web applications that aggregate content, and applications from disparate 
sources. These so-called Remote Portlet Web services will be designed to enable 
businesses to provide content or applications in a form that does not require 
any manual content or application-specific adaptation by consuming 
applications. 

Clearly, in both cases the goal is to facilitate 
integration of interactive applications (or: components) into new contexts. In 
WSIA, the "Consumer" applications are generic, whereas in WSRP, they are 
specifically portal applications.

Based on the preliminary work in both committees, 
there's a set of base services common to both cases, which handles the 
fundamental questions of how are interactive applications represented and 
integrated.

         
+----------+
         +   
Base   + 
         
+----------+

And then some application-specific 
interfaces/protocols, which deal with portal integration (e.g., admin screens 
and user management) and non-portal integration (customization, commerce 
integration, etc.).

+-------------+ +-----------------+
+   Portals   
+ +   Non-portals   +
+-------------+ 
+-----------------+

Naturally, we will have to decide - between the two 
committees - which one handles the "base" services. These are naturally issues 
around the basic request model (actual API and flow), URL rewriting, 
instantiation, etc.

It would seem that WSRP will evolve from this into 
portal-specific questions and WSIA will evolve into tighter integration 
scenarios.

There are pros and cons to having each committee handle 
the base services:

- WSRP is a more advanced in terms of actual protocols 
for base services. (But, naturally, those protocols may not less adequate for 
the general case)
- WSIA has a wider view of the requirements. (But, 
naturally, may require some more time to 
converge).

Again, since there's a large 
overlap between the two committees, this is more of a procedural issue than it 
is of a real issue, but I thought it might be worth pointing out before the 
meeting.

Looking forward to see you on 
Monday,

Eilon

PS: Sorry if this message 
gets to you twice - I posted it to both 
committees.