Yes, I see the underlying platform of Wave as basically distributed version/concurrency control. I don't believe that one must use any of the Wave client stuff

Yes, I see the underlying platform of Wave as basically distributed version/concurrency control. I don't believe that one must use any of the Wave client stuff to interoperate. Furthermore, isn't this just a matter of degree vs. kind? One could make the argument that the standard for an email message is overly restrictive or that IM protocols limit innovation. I tried Groove back in the day, and it was actually one of the first "prior art" things I thought of when watching the Wave demo video. And, IIRC, Groove's backend was some sort of XML database....