LEAP: One Alternative To WAP

Fortunately, an alternative to WAP exists: LEAP, the Lightweight and Efficient Application Protocol. LEAP consists of a set of high-performance, efficient protocols which are ideal for mobile and wireless applications. LEAP presently includes the following component protocols:

• Efficient Short Remote Operations Protocol (ESRO).
  ESRO can be thought of as a reliable connectionless transport mechanism, forming the foundation for the development of efficient protocols when TCP is too much and UDP is too little. ESRO was published as RFC-2188[14] in September of 1997. The ESRO protocol is publicly maintained and developed by ESRO.org at http://www.esro.org/.

• Efficient Mail Submission and Delivery Protocol (EMSD).
  EMSD is designed to address the mobile messaging (e-mail) application. EMSD was published as RFC-2524 [1] in March of 1999. The EMSD protocol is publicly maintained and developed by EMSD.org at http://www.emsd.org/.

• Efficient Hyper Text Delivery Protocol (EHTD).
  EHTD is currently undergoing development and will provide efficient delivery of web pages. It is currently undergoing public development at http://www.freeprotocols.org/EHTD.

Open source implementations of the ESRO and EMSD protocols are being made available as free software at: http://www.MailMeAnywhere.org/.

The LEAP protocols, in combination with existing Internet protocols, properly address the same set of requirements that WAP claims to address. They have all the preferred protocol characteristics described in Section 1.2. They are published as Internet RFCs, are publicly maintained, and suffer from none of the technical deficiencies ascribed to the WAP specifications. In addition, the LEAP protocols fully conform to the patent-free policies and procedures of the Free Protocols Foundation [10].

A comparison of LEAP to WAP, and justification of LEAP as the basis of an industry standard, is provided in LEAP: One Alternative To WAP [11], a companion article to this one. This article is available at the Free Protocols Foundation website at http://www.FreeProtocols.org.

A complete and detailed description of LEAP is provided in The LEAP Manifesto [12], available at the LEAP Forum website at http://www.LeapForum.org.

Anyone interested in participating in the development of the LEAP protocols is invited to join the mailing lists hosted at the above-mentioned websites. LEAP's development process is truly open and non-exclusive. There are no membership fees. Participation in the LEAP development process requires only that you commit to the patent-free intent of LEAP and the Free Protocols Foundation.