OReilly article: XML.com: The True Meaning of Service [Jul. 17, 2002]

"... At some point over the past 18 months the future direction of the Web began to be seen widely as a struggle between "Web Services" and the "Semantic Web". The latter was thought to be rooted in the W3C and academia, the former in IBM-Microsoft-Sun and industry. Since the significance of any debate of the form, "the future of x", depends almost entirely on the present value of x, debates about the future of the Web are often heated, primarily because the present Web is so valuable. There is too much at stake for half measures. ..."