Michael Poulin wrote: > Sure, Anne. I prefer OASIS SOA definition and it is my business to > promote it. BTW there is one more OASIS standard on the way (public > draft) on SOA Ontology, and they also in sync with OASIS SOA (thanks > God!). So, my 'flexibility' is in that I prefer to setup the terms > before the conversation though this is not easy some times.
If I tell a story about traveling from the US to the UK and having some chips and tea in the afternoon, what would you think I meant when I said "chips"? Is it the US chip, or the european chip? Would the place that I was born affect your assumption? Terms and standard phrases are always nice, but if they are not uniformly understood and globally equal in definition, than one has a harder time having a conversation with them. The word "contract" is not a well defined and uniformly understood (one meaning and application) term. So, it's not really productive to use it for anything more than a hint of a formal agreement. Lawyers and language specialists/majors often qualify the use of such terms because they know that the single word is easy to say, but doesn't easily convey any particular meaning without additional qualification. This is what makes SOA a non-starter. It doesn't convey anything useful without additional qualification, and once you start down that path, the conversation will inevitably touch all kinds of places that make it much richer in content and meaning to the two parties because they used more descriptive terms and phrases that help each other see very specific detail. Gregg Wonderly
