XML is the oldest of the four core Web services protocols and the only one that wasn't hatched recently from an IBM or Microsoft lab. XML has been under the stewardship of both the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Sun appears to have been deeply involved in XML's evolution as a protocol long before Web services came into vogue. From 1998-2000, Sun's Director of Technology Development Bill Smith was president of OASIS' board of directors. Sun's current manager of XML industry initiatives, Simon Nicholson, is on that board. According to documents on the W3C's Web page for Web services activity, Sun was active in the earliest of the W3C's birds-of-a-feather sessions for the XML protocol. The site also lists a white paper by Sun's Jon Bosak as one of the first significant drafts on XML's promise for the Web.

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When pressed for specifics on why they considered Sun's behavior unbecoming of a Web services leader, Sutor and Charney cited Sun's early positions on the three other core Web services protocols (UDDI, SOAP, WSDL). But they made no mention of XML.

Sutor claimed that Sun dismissed UDDI's usefulness because the company viewed the Web services directory as a threat to Jini, its own Java-based technology for locating services on a network. But the record suggests otherwise. In a press release from Sept. 6, 2000, IBM, Microsoft, and Ariba not only announced the launch of the UDDI Project, but listed Sun as one of the "thirty-six industry leaders" that supported it.

Sutor offered no other specifics as to why he felt Sun wasn't behind UDDI. He did, however, provide details on the WSDL protocol. Sun, he said, failed to get behind the submission of certain Web services protocols to W3C. Last year, according to Sutor, he asked Sun's Smith to support the WSDL submission and Smith refused. If Sutor did make the request, it wasn't a casual call to an acquaintance. Sutor and Smith are credited with working famously together under the guise of OASIS to produce the ebXML specification for the United Nations.

While Smith was unavailable for comment, the only evidence on public record that might corroborate Sutor's contentions are the initial submissions to the W3C for both SOAP and WSDL. Unlike the first public document of UDDI.org, neither lists Sun as one of the many initial backers of the two protocols.

On the other hand, Sun went public shortly thereafter about its enthusiasm for IBM's support of SOAP. Within two months of the W3C SOAP submission, IBM donated a Java-based implementation of the specification called SOAP4J to the open source community. IBM's June 1, 2000 press release, announcing the initiative, quotes Sutor as saying that "IBM is a leading advocate of ensuring that the Internet foundation remains truly open and that the Internet doesn't become a battleground of competing, vendor-specific 'control points.'"

Days later, during a presentation at the JavaOne conference in which Sun's XML roadmap was presented (see Webcast), Sun's Duncan Davidson called SOAP "a very interesting piece of technology to a lot of people." Noting IBM's efforts to make SOAP "a truly standard solution that's not controlled by any one vendor," Duncan added, "We really support them in doing so and we're putting engineering resources to help make that happen."

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