WSTF - FAQ

Q1: What is the WSTF?
The WSTF is a community where all parties that are interested in the development and use of Web Services can come together for the purpose of improving their interoperability and ease of adoption. There are several key benefits of the WSTF, they include:

• A focus on customer based scenarios and requirements rather than just low-level specification interoperability verification.
• Long-lived endpoints that allow for continuous regression testing without the need for a formal 'interop event'.
• Testing is accomplished using a "Many to Many" interoperability model.
• A lightweight forum in which new scenarios can be started/tested without the bureaucracy found elsewhere. Anyone can propose and work on a new scenario.
• A forum in which specification at all stages of their lifecycle can be tested.
• A forum where people can ask the WS community at large about some issue or concern without the need to worry of it being "out of scope".
• All Web Service related work can be examined - for example, this group is not limited to just SOAP-based Web Service testing.

Q2: Who can I contact for more info about WSTF?
For general questions or comments, send an email to admin_at_wstf.org. For press related inquiries, send an email to publicrelations_at_wstf.org.

Q3: Who can join the group?
Anyone with an interest in Web Services and is willing to sign the Participation Agreement. Keep in mind that if you work for a company that has any interest in Web Services then you'll need to join as an employee of that company - in other words the company needs to approve you joining.

Q4: How do I join the group?
Read, sign and email the Participation Agreement to the admin (admin_at_wstf.org). You will also need to send a note to the admin_at_wstf.org indicating who should be added to the group, and who will be the primary and alternate contacts for your organization. For each person you should include their name, email address and their preferred login ID (often the same as their email name).

Note: if you ask to join as an individual, and not as an employee of a company, you will be asked if your employer has any interest in Web Services, in any capacity - even as a consultant. If they do, you'll need to have your company sign up. This is for the protection of the other WSTF members - when you provide feedback (ie. IP) we need to ensure that your company knows they are providing it under royalty free terms.

Q5: How do I add more people from my company to the roster?
Send a note to admin_at_wstf.org providing their name and email address.

Q6: What kind of commitment is expected of members? How much time and effort will be required?
The WSTF is purely a volunteer organization and each member is free to choose their level of involvement. For example, at one end of the spectrum, a member may choose to simply monitor the mailing lists. A slightly more active member may choose to offer feedback or suggestions for new scenarios. And at the other end of the spectrum, a very active member may choose be very involved in the development of a scenario. And, of course, a member's interest in Web Services will most likely dictate how they participate. For example, Web Service vendors will probably be very active on the development of the endpoints, while users/customers of the products produced by those vendors may find themselves more on the scenario development side of things. But, again, this is all voluntary and members are free to take on whatever role (or roles) they wish.

Q7: Who pays for all of this activity?
Each participant is responsible for the costs associated with their own work. So, for example, if someone wants to hosts endpoints then they are responsible for any costs associated with that. This sharing of costs allows the WSTF to remain free from requiring dues.

Q8: Now that I'm a member, what should I do next?
If you have an Web Service implementation you should look at scenarios sc002 and sc003. These two scenarios will form the basis for most of the other scenarios. These two define just very basic operations that once implemented will allow you to focus the more interesting aspects of Web Services - composing in the other Web Service specifications.

New members, whether you have a Web Service implementation or not, should look through the scenarios to see if any of the currently active ones would be of interest to you. Most likely the members working on them would value your input. If there are other scenarios that you'd like to see developed simply start a new thread on the wstf_at_wstf.org mailing list to see if others would like to work with you on your idea.

Q9: How do I participate in the mailing lists?
To participate in the mailing list, once you are added to the roster, you simply need to send mail to the appropriate mailing list. There are four different mailing lists:

• wstf_at_wstf.org is for email to the entire WSTF community.
• admin_at_wstf.org is for email to the administrator of the group. Use this for issues with the web site, request for a new scenario to be created or for requesting a vote.
• publicrelations_at_wstf.org is for PR related questions.
• sc???_at_wstf.org (where ??? is replaced by the scenario number) is for email related to a specific scenario. Each scenario has its own mailing list so that people can control the amount of emails they receive.

You can select which mailing list emails you receive by modifying your profile.

Q10: Who can create a new scenario?
Any WSTF member can create a new scenario.

Q11: How can I start a new scenario?
Ideas for new scenarios should be discussed on the wstf_at_wstf.org mailing list. While not a formal requirement, there should be consensus around the idea. Once an idea has been drafted/outlined a formal request should be sent to admin_at_wstf.org to create it.

Q12: Who can request a vote?
Anyone can request a vote by simply sending a note to the Administrator on the admin_at_wstf.org mailing list.

Q13: When do we vote to publish a scenario?
This is up to the implementers of the scenario. Once the authors and implementers of the scenario believe that it is complete it can be taken forward for a vote.

Q14: What's the voting criteria to publish a scenario?
As stated in the Charter, you'll need: 1) at least 5 independent implementations of the scenario, 2) at least 5 of those implementations casting a vote, 3) at least 2/3 of them approve the vote. Only implementers are allowed to vote to publish a scenario.

Q15: Why are implementers the only ones allowed to vote?
While anyone in the Forum is allowed to participate in the development of the scenario, in order to ensure that published scenarios have broad industry support the Forum requires that scenarios be grounded with actual running code.

Q16: How do I advertise my endpoint for a scenario?
Each scenario will have an Endpoints page associated with it. From that page you can add a new endpoint to the list. Each endpoint will list the name of the owning organization, the URL to the service supporting the scenario and a URL to a web page (UI) that will provide addition information about that endpoint. Typically, this UI page will also provide the ability to invoke the client-side portion of the scenario. Ideally, you should be able to provide it with the URL to your service so you can test your server-side portion of the scenario w/o needing to have the client-side implementation owner manually do it for you. Each scenario can also include a list of keywords. These keywords provide some high level information about what is supported at the endpoint - e.g. soap11 or soap12.

Q17: Who can use the endpoints listed for a scenario?
Anyone regardless of whether they're in the Forum or not is allowed to use the endpoints. Obviously, good behavior is expected. This mean care should be taken to not overload any endpoint.

Q18: Can we run regular regression tests using these endpoints?
Yes with the caveat mentioned in the previous response - please do not overload these endpoints. These endpoints are here to encourage testing and promote interoperability. It would defeat the purpose if these endpoints needed constant monitoring due to their abuse.

Q19: I think I found a bug in someone's implementation - what should I do?
First and foremost - be nice. We are here to help each other and improve interoperability. If you think you found a bug in someone's endpoint you can either contact them directly (see the contact name/email on the list of endpoints for the scenario), or start a discussion on the appropriate mailing list - politely :-)

Q20: What's the next step if we find a problem with one of the WS specs?
Interested parties should take the issue to the appropriate forum. This will usually be the authors working on the specification. Remember, however, any discussions of the issues found must be done w/o disclosing any other WSTF participant's testing results - unless they give you permission to do so.