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Subject: RE: Service & Capability
Hi Jim, We never really fully defined “capability” in
the RM. Instead, we took the approach that it meant more or less the “ability
to do something.” A little vague admittedly, but certainly OK from
an abstract RM perspective. People usually associate doing something with functionality;
hence, capability and functionality are often used synonymously when talking
about services. In my opinion, capability goes beyond just the ability to
do something (i.e., functionality) but also how an offering (e.g., service) performs
that capability; in other words, its quality attributes. And both (functionality
and quality attributes) should be part of that offering’s advertised
description. If not, how do I as a consumer decide whether or not the
offering is going to meet my needs? The distinction between capability and real world effect was
essentially taken from the perspective that the former is an a priori notion (i.e.,
what the service can do or is suppose to be able to do prior to invocation) and
the result of invoking the service to realize the capability. The latter
we refer to, of course, as real world effect. Clearly, a real world effect cannot occur unless there is
some action or set of actions performed by an initiator (consumer) and an action
or set of actions performed by the receiver (service). This is why we
introduced the concept of “joint action” in the RA. In other
words, there has to be a speaker and a listener in order for something to
happen (i.e., real world effect to occur). You do raise a good point between the two uses in 4.3.2 and
3.3.1 that we would should try and do a better job of aligning. Neither
statement is really wrong per se, it’s just that it would be better if we
could be a little more clarity on the relationship between action (or joint
action), capabilities, and real world effect as you’ve suggested. Something
we should take the action to resolve before the next public review draft. Cheers… - Jeff |
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