Today, SOAP and the W3C are uncomfortable with each other. The baking process was a total failure. Adopting XML-RPC as-is is still the best idea, imho. Interop debates over how to do attachments are raging. Geez, what's so complicated. Use MIME, and don't bother with attachments, send them as parameters, or send a URL to the attachment and read it, and decode it, and please just use MIME because it works and it interops and that's why we do this stuff. [Scripting News]

For the lawyers and court folks out there - Dave Winer's SOAP Interoperability Notes touches the core of a broader standards issue that could make or break electronic filing for lawyers and courts.   Interoperability trials of LegalXML standards have taken place, with mixed results.   Other courts, like this one in New Mexico, have attempted to create their own open standards.   Although the discussion list archives haven't been posted yet on the OASIS site, LegalXML standards development appears to be suffering from a similar failure of the baking process.   

In the court system, we are required, as a matter of constitutional law, to provide open access to the courts.  So it's not just that a system has to function, it's that it must function for everyone, no matter how they arrive, or whether they can pay. 

Let's put the service back in Web services, instead of waiting for the perfect loaf.