Make Love not War - part III: Glassfish colors Indigo
In the good news department…
Several sources around the internet report of Sun announcing renewed commitment to Web Services interoperability, especially with technology from Microsoft. It does so by developing and distributing open source versions of industry-wide WS-* specifications that benefit interoperability in Service Oriented Architectures. The specifications concern messaging, metadata, security, and QoS. The full list:
- WS-Addressing
- MTOM (Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism) succesor of SOAP w/ attachments and DIME.
- WS-Policy
- WS-MetadataExchange
- WS-Security
- WS-Trust
- WS-SecureConversation
- WS-ReliableMessaging
- WS-Coordination
The open source part of the announcement means that the specifications will be implemented as part of project Glassfish, Sun’s open source application server development effort.
Microsoft already announced to implement these specifications in their original plans for the Windows Communication Framework, formerly known as Indigo. With both parties implementing the same specs it’s another step forward for Web Services interop and some less worries for developers. Microsoft issued a statement that spoke of “..a natural part of our ongoing effort to please mutual customers..”.
From my opinion it’s also another victory for all the hard work that is done through the process of WS-I.
Expect some results to be visible within three to six months (according to Sun).