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Re: SOAP/XML Protocol and filtering, etc.

2001-05-08 06:30:01
Also because we are the organisation worrying about middleboxes
such as firewalls, and therefore about their interaction with
SOAP and/or XML Protocol.

intermediaries *always* break when the endpoint protocols change.  that's 
not the fault of SOAP - that's entirely due to the failure of firewall
vendors and network admins to understand and apply the end-to-end argument.

ironically it's this very property that causes the SOAP people to try
to subvert HTTP to their needs.   we need to fix the real problem -
which is that we have these boxes in the interior of our network
that think that they know what our end-to-end protocols look like
(even though these protocols change, and need to be able to change,
independently of those boxes) and think they have the license to alter them.

the layering violations caused by such intermediaries are far worse than
anything that SOAP is proposing.  that doesn't justify more bad design on 
SOAP's part - but recent IETF efforts toward actually encouraging such 
intermediaries are far worse.

Keith