Defending the spirit of the web: Conflicts in the internet standards process
Introduction
The adaption and creation of principles is frequently replica of a game. In other words, the standards process is the replica of the activities of a formulated actor in the networks. The paper focuses on the development of web services choreography standards. It details the history and explains the technological arguments surrounding the standards. It entails a model of standardization, and look at a previous case from three perspectives. The first perspective is social- it follows the people involved in the standard process, an approximation of more complex approaches. The second is cultural- it looks at the ideas of the participants, particular ideas about technology (Edrei, 2016). The third is economic.
These three approaches are intertwined. Economic theories are important in explaining how individuals with a given set of utilities will interact. On the other hand, Economic theories are insignificant at determining where the utility comes from, but social theories are better for understanding how individual’s utility gets formed. The social research allows building and calibrating a better decision model.
Literature Review
- The social Perspective: Following the People
The standard process of constructing the web service composition consists of two decision process, development, and adoption. In the development process, the participants in a standards body create and debate the standard. A normal document is created when the official report goes well, which is frequently improved until it is introduced to a wider community for acceptance (Nickerson, & Zur Muehlen, 2013,).
Web services choreography describes the coordination of long-running transaction between business partners using usual internet protocols. It can be used in a diversity of domains, extending from supply chain management to media content solicitation. The foundations of web services choreography can be located in workflow management technology, which has been available since the middle of the 1980s.
In early 1990s large workflow users became aware of the possibility that they would be approved for the existence of several workflow solutions from different vendors. Standards were first created within the scope of workflow management coalition, but are increasing being defined by competing for uniformity groups, such as Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI), Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standard (OASIS), and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
In parallel to this growth, the use of Internet technology for application combination became feasible through the introduction of value-added models on top of the inevitable Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) protocol used for the World Wide Web. These standards allow application designers to open their request for access to the internet. However, some applications give help for simple request-response message exchanges. More robust mechanisms are needed for the coordination of long-running transactions, such as the following exchange of Quotes, Orders, and Delivery Notes.
The web service compositions are not moving by themselves it is the participants in the choreography process who are packing up, leaving, and reassembling with a different standards organization. There are a finite number of people active in the composition process, and as a group loses momentum, some of the members will move to a livelier group.
Participants in the standards process are looking for a venue in which they could offer a standard that is technically excellent. When they are not comfortable in the group they are foundering, they jump to another group. From this perspective of the movement pattern of people leaving a group to another, it is essential to look the ideas.
- The cultural perspective: Following the ideas
From the movements of the standards participants, the main reason for shifting group is disenchantment with the development of the business in the group. And this can be described as a growing sense that the actual standard is becoming too involved. For anyone quitting a conventional process because of the complexity of the conventional process does not appear to fit into a game-theoretic model, where the players are described as seeking to dominate each other for the fulfillment of the interests of their sponsoring corporation. Instead, they are engaged in something that looks like a process of aesthetic evaluation of the standard.
An aesthetic judgment can contribute to a strong value system. For instance, graphic designers of the modern school are taught to avoid that which does not contribute to the meaning of a page. And also programmers are also taught about clean versus kludgy code. The standard is explicitly disapproving of a potential use of Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) because it is counter to the spirit of the web.
It violates the design aesthetic of those who have built the web protocols. The phrase “the spirit of the web” is interesting from two perspectives. It is closer to an aesthetic than a rule; this is because there are myriad different ways to define a protocol and a myriad. Secondly, it suggests that the web has a spirit and this spirit is to be defended.
Most of standards have grown through Request for Comment (RFC) process, and it is described as follows: easily understood documentation, technical excellence; prior implementation and testing; clear, concise, and openness and fairness; and timeliness.
The participants in the development of web services are influenced by both the norms of the corporations they serve and the beliefs of the technical community they consider themselves part of it. For example, open source develops source while working on the job, sometimes without the employer knowing (Fielding, Roy Thomas, 2013). They define their identity in the hacker community. This may be the case that regular participants are similar.
- The economic perspective: Following the Money
It is clear that a lot about standards can be learned by evaluating the potential benefits to the players involved in decision making. The vendors want to make money on standards, and by making the standard more complex, they increase the chance of selling products (Swenson, 2013). A programmer’s utility can be evaluated when a different criterion is looked than money. The development stage can be described as a stage of the collective invention, and as a part of this invention, new ideas are continually evaluated.
The dialogues captured in standard group’s discussions often concern the weighing of different attributes. It can be predicted that different groups would have different weights in mind for a similar set of attributes. In standard groups labor is voluntary, and switching costs are low, so quitting one standards body and reforming in another is a viable option.
In modeling, the standards creation process, one possible result of an impasse might be the migration to a different standards committee. And in methodological –the social perspective helps inform the economic perspective. The bylaws of the groups might determine the allowable jumps so that the movement between groups might be less random than it appears.
Vendors would want to serve on multiple standards committees so that they don’t report late if one takes off. Also, users might have little motivation to adopt one of these standards if the head does not move.
In conditions of high uncertainty, waiting might be the best strategy. It can be seen in web services choreography that there is an absence of user adoption and participation by vendors on multiple committees. Observation of different standards and their participants’ standards can be categorized as being driven by three different groups. The first two groups are self-evident.
Some standards are clearly driven by vendors, and some standards are clearly driven by users, for instance, Rosetta Nett is driven by a set of companies in the manufacturing industry. But there is a third set of specification such as HTTP where representatives of corporations are involved, but the standards do not drive by corporations. Those are referred as research-driven. Often, those engaged in the creation are financed by government research funding organizations (Kaman et al., 2014).
The representatives of corporations involved in these standards are often individuals who maintain a strong link with the research community. And the standards are sometimes created in standards groups that are strongly identified with the research community. In the understanding of the economies of standards development, It is essential to look at the funding sources and furthermore the sympathies of those on the committees.
Most software vendors are pushing for SOAP-based coordination standards in contrast. In contrast, the dispute between different standards for railroad track widths was resolved through the wishes of an important customer, the federal government. In rare cases, customers can overcome the wishes of vendors. Vendors often use the standardization process toward their ends and, in game-theoretic terms. The most accusation against vendors for conspiring to sabotage standards might be correct. There is always tension between the proposals of research-oriented participants and those who conscientiously represent the interest of their sponsoring firms.
The standard process is complex, and multiple perspectives, applying both social and economic techniques are more likely to yield insights than unique techniques. Future research might suggest ways of preserving or improving the overall functional landscape of official bodies.
References
Edrei, A. (2016). Divine spirit and physical power: Rabbi Shlomo Goren and the military ethic of the Israel defense forces. Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 7(1), 255-297.
Fielding, Roy Thomas (2013). Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures. Department of Computer Science. Irvine, CA, University of California, Irvine, CA: 180.
Kazman, Rick, Jai Asundi and Mark Klein (2014). Quantifying the Costs and Benefits of Architectural Decisions. ICSE 2001.
Nickerson, J. V., & Zur Muehlen, M. (2013, December). Defending the spirit of the web: Conflicts in the internet standards process. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Standard Making (pp. 56-69).
Swenson, Keith D. (2013). Personal Communication. M. zur Muehlen. Hoboken, NJ. West, Joel (2013). How open is open enough? Melding proprietary and open source platform strategies. Research Policy 32: 1259-1285.
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