why WS-I profile specification is specific to SOAP encoding

There is one thing I am confused by reading WS-I profile specification. WS-I institute aimed for interoperability between web services..as per my understanding a web service is which can be clearly defined in WSDL as per rules of WS-I profile specification....now WSDL\WS-I supposed to be independent of any data and transport binding. and SOAP is just one way of data binding not the only way of data binding.

1. Why does WS-I profile explicitly cover SOAP d开发者_如何学Pythonata binding protocol?
2. Why WS-XXX specifications talk in terms of SOAP protocol headers? Why did n't WS-I profile describe various headers in data binding independent way?
3. In another word, is there any difference between SOAP and web services?

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Q: Is there any difference between SOAP and web services?

A: There's a HUGE difference (unless you're from the Marketing Dept in Microsoft ;))

The main alternative to SOAP is REST (i.e. REST-ful web services)

Here are two excellent overviews of WS-Interoperability, from two different perspectives:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms953977.aspx

• http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/11/wsi-closes