Following the rumbling ‘WAP is Wack’ theme, the Free Protocols Foundation has released an expose of the Wireless Application Protocol. It’s all just a big fraud, they say…‘The Wireless Applications Protocol purports to be just what the doctor ordered,’ the report says, ‘- a set of standards that will unify the wireless data applications industry.  WAP presents itself as an open, license-free standard for wireless Internet access.  It claims to be a well-designed engineering construction, allowing free

interoperability among wireless industry vendors. It claims to be an enabling technology that will catalyze the development of the wireless industry, to the ultimate benefit of the industry and the consumer.‘Not so, the report goes on to argue. WAP has none of the attributes of a genuine protocol, and is entirely unfit for the purposes being widely claimed for it: it’s not open in terms of development and maintenance, has no assurance of availability and stability, isn’t patent free, and has no legitimacy as a standard because it’s not supported and approved by an established, professional standards organization, and has not achieved industry-wide acceptance andusage.Now this could all be sour grapes, since the group that has produced the report is also a develop of the alternative LEAP protocol: but they do openly declare this potential conflict of interest, and their document still makes for very interesting reading. Check it out, whydoncha? Wap: Crap? www.ietf.org/mail-archive/ietf/Current/msg08051.html