An IBM official has pledged that the vendor will not seek royalties
for its contributions to the BPEL4WS (Business Process Execution
Language for Web Services) proposal. BEA Systems, a co-author of
BPEL4WS, released a statement with a similar pledge shortly
afterwards.
Microsoft, also a BPEL4WS co-author, has so far stayed silent
reagrding its stance on royalties related to the proposal. IBM
director of Web services strategy Bob Sutor said he could not speak
for the positions of the two co-authors of BPEL4WS pertaining to
royalties.
"As far as IBM is concerned, we will license BPEL4WS on a
royalty-free basis," Sutor said.
BEA released a statement that it would submit its technologies for
BPEL4WS without royalties if the other two vendors do the
same.
"BEA has been on record for a long time now advocating that all
standards be royalty-free and have committed that any standard we
have control over will be offered royalty-free," BEA said
"However, BPEL4WS is a standard backed by three companies, so all
three have to agree on the royalty-free position. BEA has long
pushed for it to be royalty-free - so if IBM and Microsoft also
come on board agreeing with that position, then we will, of course,
continue to advocate it be submitted as a royalty-free standard."
Sutor cautioned that observers should not become simplistic in
regards to royalty-free proposals in general. IBM, for example,
could have conditions such as requiring that other vendors provide
their technology royalty-free if IBM does.
Web services choreography standardisation pertains to defining
industry-wide mechanisms and formats for interaction among Web
services. An example where this would come into play would be an
e-business transaction that required multiple Web services to
interact on matters such as filling orders, checking inventory, and
performing credit checks, said Sutor.
Choreography is considered a major factor in furthering use of Web
services, and it is the subject of both BPEL4WS, which has yet to
be submitted to an industry standards organisation, and Web
Services Choreography Interface, a Sun Microsystems-led proposal
already under consideration by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C).
Although the BPEL4WS authors plan to submit the plan to a standards
organisation, no decision has yet been made on which one, and that
is not expected for a month or two, Sutor said.