Standards: Politics As Usual

While Sun has joined efforts with IBM, Microsoft and other Web Services vendors in proposing a Web Services Security specification (good news), Sun is continuing to make provocative remarks about its absence from the WS-I interoperability initiative (not good news).

In Tokyo this week, Sun executive John Bobowicz, chief technical strategist at Sun Microsystems's Sun One project distributed unflattering slides about competitors Microsoft and IBM Web Services products in his session handouts, while removing the slides from his presentation.

According to sources present at the event, he then went on to remark on the fact that Sun would not be able to join WS-I unless they were offered equal terms (that is, a founding member’s seat on the Board of Directors.)  Sun is unhappy because although the WS-I board is in the process of creating two additional board seats they will be offered up to any WS-I member who wants one, in competition (they are reported to be 12 members interested).  Also, these additional seats carry a two-year term instead of the permanent tenure afforded founding board members.

If the point of Web Services is for user organizations to be able to readily interoperate across platforms and applications, competing standards will not aid in that goal, so we are hoping that Sun and WS-I can find a way to negotiate themselves into a solution.   

We also note that the Liberty Alliance (Sun’s approach to Single Sign-On and Authentication) is about to have its first specification announced.  This now includes most of the Web Services community except IBM and Microsoft.  With luck, Liberty will submit this specification to a widely supported standards body such as OASIS and as it passes through that broader approval process the rest of the Web Services community can agree to use it as the basis for their specific, different, and competitive implementations.  

(back to top)