1.	Here's a summary of how we got to where we're at right now.
2.	In February 1998 I wrote a DaveNet piece with the germ of the idea of XML-RPC. We released a prototype that could be used for Frontier-Frontier communication. I got an email from Bob Atkinson at Microsoft, asking if we would work with them, and we said yes, and went forward.
3.	We co-authored a spec, it was called Simple Object Access Protocol, or SOAP. We wanted an even simpler subset, that became XML-RPC, released publicly in April 1998. Our protocol was a compatible subset of SOAP, with the idea that any XML-RPC app could be compatibly upgraded to support the full SOAP spec when Microsoft was ready to release it.
4.	In the interim, there was minor spec-drift, small differences at the XML-RPC level. Microsoft kept us in the loop, but we didn't move the public spec along with them, our plan was to wait until they were closer to deploying, and then do one rev, if possible, to get us back in synch.