W3C Architecture Domain | Web Services Activity

XML Protocol Working Group Charter

[February 2006]

Michael Mahan (Nokia), Chair
Yves Lafon, Team Contact

The XML Protocol Working Group is a Working Group of the W3C and follows the Working Group process described in section 6.2 Working Groups and Interest Groups of the Process Document. It supersedes the Working Group’s previous charter of February 2005.


Table of Contents

  1. Mission
  2. Scope
  3. Deliverables
  4. Expected milestones
  5. Duration
  6. Relationship with Other Groups
  7. Working Group participation
  8. Meetings
  9. Communication
  10. Confidentiality
  11. Patent Policy

Mission

The mission of the XML Protocol Working Group is to maintain and develop as needed the SOAP Version 1.2 specifications and their extensions.

Scope

The Working Group is responsible for updating errata documents and publishing new editions incorporating published errata.

In addition to the maintenance effort, the XML Protocol Working Group is chartered to work on SOAP Version 1.2 extensions.

Deliverables

The first deliverable of the Working Group is the revisions to these Recommendations:

  1. SOAP Version 1.2 part 0, part 1 and part 2
  2. SOAP Version 1.2 Specification Assertions and Test Collection
  3. XML-binary Optimized Packaging (XOP)
  4. SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM)
  5. Resource Representation SOAP Header Block (RRSHB)

The Working Group also expects to publish a separate and/or updated Recommendation that provides for one-way SOAP messaging (at least a binding over HTTP). This could consist of a new Message Exchange Pattern (MEP) and/or a new or revised SOAP HTTP Binding(s). The solution may also provide for other use cases described by the Web Services Addressing Working Group, such as request-response using 2 HTTP connections.

A SOAP Message Exchange Pattern (MEP) is a template that establishes a pattern for the exchange of messages between SOAP nodes.

Expected milestones

These are subject to revision due to editorial needs and external scheduling issues; updates will be negotiated with the related groups and recorded on the XML Protocol Working Group home page. Please see the Working Group home page for information about scheduled meetings.

October 2005
Working Group rechartering.
March 2006
Publish Last Call Working Draft of the one-way MEP
April 2006
Publish Candidate Recommendation of the one-way MEP
September 2006
Publish Recommendation of the one-way MEP

Although the schedule lists the one way MEP document as being on the Recommendation track, one of the first task of the WG will be to evaluate the work and decide on the nature of the document.

Duration

The expiration date of this charter is 31 December 2006.

Relationship with Other Work

W3C Activities

XML and XML derived activities have become a strategic technology in W3C and elsewhere. Each deliverable of any Working Group must satisfy the dependencies from other W3C Working Groups before it can advance to Candidate Recommendation.

Web Services Coordination Group
The XML Protocol Working Group will manage dependencies with other groups in the Web Services Activity through the Web Services Coordination Group.
XML Coordination Group
The XML Protocol Working Group will manage dependencies with other groups in the XML Activity through the XML Coordination Group.

External Groups

The XML Protocol Working Group should liaise with at least the following groups outside W3C:

The Internet Engineering Task Force
The XML Protocol WG will liaise with the IETF to discuss all transport protocol issues that are relevant for XML Protocol. For issues that are not clearly in the realm of an existing IETF WG, the IETF/W3C coordination call should be used as the discussion forum.
Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards
OASIS is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards.
Web Services Interoperability Organization
The Web Services Interoperability Organization is an open industry effort chartered to promote Web Services interoperability across platforms, applications, and programming languages through the development of profiles, any one of which could be relevant.

Working Group participation

Effective participation is expected to consume at least one day per week of each Working Group participant’s time.

To be successful, we expect the Working Group to have approximately 5 to 10 active principal members for its 15-month duration. We also expect a large public review group that will participate in the mailing list discussions.

Chair

The initial chair of this Working Group is Michael Mahan, Nokia.

W3C Team resources

The W3C Team contact is Yves Lafon. It is expected that this Working Group will consume about 0.2 FTE, including administrative logistics.

Meetings

A one to two hours Working Group distributed meeting will be held every week. When necessary to meet agreed-upon deadlines, the distributed meetings may be held twice a week.

Meeting records must be made publicly available except for non-technical issues that do not directly affect the output of the Working Group.

The Working Group also expects to hold one or two face-to-face meetings.

Communication

The Working Group will utilize a W3C Member mailing list <w3c-xml-protocol-wg@w3.org>, and a public mailing list <xml-dist-app@w3.org>. The public mailing list, with its wider audience, exists to promote openness and interoperability, and is the preferred channel of communication.

Confidentiality

The proceedings of this Working Group are public, subject to exceptions made by the Chair, after consultation with the Working Group.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (5 February 2004 Version). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis.


Michael Mahan <michael.mahan@nokia.com>, Yves Lafon <ylafon@w3.org>
Last modified $Date: 2006/03/21 15:39:24 $