I agree 100% with his analysis. reading it also encouraged me to pay more attention to WS-I as its profiles could evolve into the guiding standards for the 2nd generation WS specifications, like W3C is for the 1st generation.
I know Tarak would agree that although the WS-* standards are confusing, but are, in fact, manageable. I assume he would also agree that these standards are, in fact, required for some distributed systems. and I do agree with him that keeping Web Services applications as simple as possible is the best way to avoid the confusion and complexity of WS-*. But I would also caution that ignoring a WS-* standard that performs a function you need could mean trouble down the road if/when a large number of other systems are built around the standard, and you'll have to play catch-up to be able to work with them.
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