WS-* "standards"

so, in my excitement over Web Services, SOA, and a "standardized" distributed systems architecture, I have jumped the gun and been under some false assumptions. specifically, I blindly believed, without verifying, that the WS-* standards that I have been exposed to thru my research were official W3C standards. but I read this blurb that corrected me, at least with regard to the competing standards of WS-Reliability and WS-ReliableMessaging.

I also noticed on Erl's specifications.ws site that the core XML and 1G Web Services were specifications from the W3C, and that the 2G WS-* specifications are listed as being published by IBM/Microsoft! I emailed Erl about this, asking if it was wise to promote possibly vendor-specific(?) standards, but I doubt he will get back to me. Not because I think he's in the pocket of IBM or MS, even though they "officially endorsed" his book, but more because he is probably swamped with frivolous email already.

I've spent most of the holiday pouring of Erl's book, in fact. I think it's a great chance for me to get caught up on SOA and implementation/integration strategies and tactics before getting back to work to put webMethods up in our Red Man systems. the webMethods reps have me convinced enough with their committment to SOA via WS, and have offered for me to give a talk at their next integration conference, which I will probably take them up on.

if I enjoy it, maybe I'll give more talks in the future...but I don't know.