The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: The Web Services Stack, and the Myths of Interoperability

There is much talk in the Grid and Web Services community about interoperability, and how vital it is. However, opinions differ on how this should be achieved, some favoring the universal adoption of emerging standards and platforms, while others take the view that only wellestablished, widely-deployed and adopted standards should be used. This talk looks at what these communities mean by interoperability, and argues that the focus of the discussion - which is usually on technology, rather than methodology - is mistaken.