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Microsoft Proposes "Open" Replacement for CORBA
Alex T-B writes "Looks like Microsoft is taking the threat from CORBA and Java seriously. They've
launched a network protocol suite [C-Net story] to embrace
and extend the distributed business software market. SOAP, as
it's called, is based on XML, and is supposed to move audiences
away from UNIX and towards adopting Win2k and fully MS-ized
software solutions. Interestingly, no MS software is needed to
use SOAP, and it levels the playing field as 'proprietary'
solutions can be replaced with a universal standard that
enabled apps written in different languages to communicate with
each other easily over the internet. Is MS actually doing the
market a favour by removing vendors' 'lock-in' strategies to
properietary solutions?"
a while will you all? YEESH
...need a name tho ;) SOAPY sounds cool.
SOAP like XMLRPC are both very interesting and promising efforts to standardise RPC. Microsoft no doubt would have developed SOAP anyway - DCOM is far more successful than CORBA is in the world - and Microsoft isn't threatended by either CORBA or Java RMI. I think Microsoft is just trying to give the "XML touch" to everything they do now in the same way they did with the internet.
That's microsoft's brilliantness, they can quickly adopt a technology or idea (usually they haven't developed it) and then start thinking of new interesting ways of using it - QUICKLY implementing these ideas.
Personally, I've read thru the somewhat brief SOAP spec, and it looks ok, but I like XMLRPC better, XMLRPC seems a bit simplistic at the moment tho. I think I'm going to write my own one for Java
Everyone here seems to treat Microsoft like it's one single entity. Well, you know, MS is run by many individuals, no one person usually makes a decision. And all this "when did microsoft suddenly go moral" etc etc is ridiculas. They can do what ever they want, and if you choose to hate EVERYTHING they do NO MATTER WHAT then what's the use of pointing it out ALL OF THE TIME unless you want to give some reasons beyond "blah blah Microsoft evil blah blah monopoly blah blah Linux will kill Microsoft".
It's silly to think that Microsoft would want you to be able to choose something besides NT to do your serving or something besides NT or 9x to do your desktop work. They haven't ever done this -- ever. How many MS SQL servers run on Solaris? How many Exchange servers run on Irix? How many BSD machines run IIS? Even things like Word and Excel tend to be ported to MacOS with as little effort as possible... and MacOS is the only other platform.
Microsoft has most of their business exactly because vendors are locked into a single, proprietary operating system. Compatable alternatives tend to not come along easily because their ``open'' APIs are incomplete or wrong -- just ask the WINE team -- or add ``features'' which break open protocols. People who get conned into using Exchange or IIS or MS SQL are forever tied into using Microsoft products.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
First: the title of this /. item is misleading:
CORBA is already open.
I've written my own CORBA implementation in perl using only the freely available documentation from the OMG (see COPE).
Second: about XML and remote procedure/method calls.
From the MS SOAP specification it looks like the scope of SOAP is far more limited than that of CORBA. The same can be said of Dave Winer's XML RPC (I forgot the exact name).
The difference is that the XML-based specifications only tell you how to make a method call. What they don't tell you are things like
CORBA uses IDL to write the contracts. Or you can use an Interface Repository.
The embrace-and-extend angle.
I noticed that MS felt the need to implement a new HTTP method called M-POST. So even though from a distance everything looks standard (XML, HTTP), a closer look reveals thta for best results people should use web servers, client libraries, proxy-servers and firewalls that are all taught to properly handle M-POST.
Conclusion
It might actually make sense to use SOAP as a new transport mechanism with CORBA. Coders would get to keep their language bindings and their existing code base, and CORBA would get a more or less standard way to travel over HTTP (which is the whole point of the SOAP excercise. HTTP means that every firewall will understand it)
Yikes! Is it me? I read the bit about an addition to HTTP (thinking "hey hey HEY WHOA run that by me again please?"), and I was wondering exactly how incompatible this would be with existing Web software (does this relate to the client at all? All those old netscapes out there, made useless?) and then it hit me...
Isn't the gag that you're supposed to not drop the soap in the showers because of what would happen to you when you bend over to "pick up the SOAP"?
Is that an accident or are these guys really that cynical? Are they actually considering 'secondary' embrace and extend effects to existing stuff like HTTP to be primary, is the primary agenda here to, you know? "Wups! Looks like it might be a good idea for you to PICK UP THE SOAP!" *plook*
Certainly that's what they are trying to do to the government and DoJ funding, but are they really thinking like this at all levels, so much that it colors their product names and makes anal rape their personal metaphor for the embrace and extend planning? Why are they not being more careful about this potential public relations disaster?