Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: IETF & XML-RPC

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:9/16/1999; 8:00:23 AM
Topic:IETF & XML-RPC
Msg #:11127 (In response to 11122)
Prev/Next:11126 / 11128

I'm still trying to figure out where it was coming from. I was told in advance that the report was coming, from Jim Whitehead, the chair of the IETF's WebDAV group, after I inquired as to whether we should push XML-RPC thru IETF. He said it would not be welcome.

Maybe my filters, trained by hardware and software platform vendors, incorrectly read this as a rebuff coming from IETF, rather than from someone who was promoting something that XML-RPC blows away. However, XML-RPC was not a plaything for us, it was a necessity. Our software is built around the idea of interconnections between applications over networks. We were going to do something here, and it was going to be open. That's XML-RPC.

Now IETF, whatever it may be, seems to feel ownership of HTTP. To me that's like saying you have ownership of a file system. That's fine, and thank you for creating such an excellent easy-to-program file system. But it seems it's up to me what I store in those files. I saw the critique as FUD. "Too bad they didn't like the idea," I said, "but we'll go forward anyway."

Also, I saw the competitive angle with WebDAV. I liked the *idea* of WebDAV, you'll find that expressed in the archives here. But when I dug in a bit deeper I found that it was unnecessarily complicated and unnecessarily limited. If this is the result of living within the limits of IETF, well thanks but no thanks. To me, distributed computing means procedure calls. The nodes at the other end of HTTP are powerful machines with graphic user interfaces. WebDAV is a way to make complicated OSes more complicated. If you want to have a really great network there must be more power granted to the nodes.

My opinion only.

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