PC Magazine: XML-RPC

[Dave Winer]

There is a mail list, but it is inactive. Most of the discussion about 
XML-RPC seems to happen on our web discussion group, discuss.userland.com.

Re competition, there's nothing as widely deployed as XML-RPC. I'm sure the 
DataChannel guys will say that WebBroker is there, it's a note of some kind 
on the W3C site, but I don't think there are any public implementations of 
WebBroker.

***Regarding future competition

We've been working with Microsoft since March 1998, that's where the 
original XML-RPC spec came from, we spun it out, while Microsoft debated 
internally about various details. Every few months they say they're ready 
to release the new spec, when and if that should happen (I've learned to be 
"realistic" about this) we will keep moving XML-RPC *and* we will 
wholeheartedly support what MS is doing, at least based on what we've seen 
to-date.

Our experience is that big companies like to do their own distributed 
computing specs, and as long as they're compatible at a certain level, this 
is not a terribly bad thing and is worth supporting to avoid being 
"crushed" (the press loves do-or-die faceoffs, I'm determined to confuse 
the hell out of them at least in this area).

To answer your final question, we have not submitted XML-RPC to W3C. If 
they loosen up their membership rules and allow individuals to be involved 
without paying a fee we'll be happy to work with them. Some compromise is 
needed. Right now all the implementations come from either small companies 
or individuals, they're doing excellent work, and it would be stupid of us 
to hand this over to W3C without a change in their way of working. I 
understand that they need money to operate, but also am aware that this 
cuts them off from excellent work being done in the open source and 
scripting worlds.

BTW, this morning Useful Inc shipped a PHP client for XML-RPC. It's really 
going to be hard to beat this one. So much energy is building..

Dave Winer
UserLand Software

At 05:29 AM 7/6/99 , Nick Manson wrote:
>Other general questions about XML-RPC:
>
>1) Is there an official mail list or workgroup for XML-RPC?
>2) Are there any competing standards with XML-RPC?
>3) Does XML-RPC have a W3C note?  If not, is one upcoming?
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-xml-dev at ic.ac.uk [mailto:owner-xml-dev at ic.ac.uk]On Behalf Of
> > Don Park
> > Sent: Monday, July 05, 1999 3:55 PM
> > To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
> > Subject: RE: PC Magazine: XML-RPC
> >
> >
> > Dave,
> >
> > Using XML-RPC, how does a client:
> >
> > 1. Get a list of all the available methods and their signature
> > (i.e. args)?
> > 2. Send XML fragments as an argument.
> > 3. Send and receive anonymous streams as argument and as result?
> >
> > Don
> >
>
>
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