SOA Web Services Journal is pleased to announce on behalf of the W3C's Web Services Description Working Group that the WSDL 2.0 specification is now officially a W3C Candidate Recommendation, the phase during which the Group verifies the implementability of the spec and tests the interoperability between implementations from different vendors.

"The Candidate Recommendation phase is designed to flush out any remaining inconsistencies, edge cases, and ambiguities in the spec that arise from implementing the spec in a variety of different environments," said Microsoft's Jonathan Marsh, Co-chair of the WS Description WG (pictured below).

During this phase, Marsh explained, the Working Group provides evidence that the spec is and will have independent implementations. After successful completion, the specifications move to final W3C Recommendation status.

"Accordingly," he continued, "the Working Group is very interested in hearing about any implementations of the specification, and invites implementers to contact the Working Group to identify industry implementations."

The Working Group also invites implementers to try out their implementations against, and contribute to, the small but growing WSDL 2.0 Test Suite, Marsh noted.

An interoperability event will be held as the implementations and test suite mature, which will be open to all implementers of the specification.

WSDL 2.0 Specification:

• Version 2.0 Part 0: Primer
• Version 2.0 Part 1: Core Language
• Version 2.0 Part 2: Adjuncts