Please find below my comments to B4P BP-16 udpates, and in passing one issues I’ve identified with HT.

By the way, I fixed a typo and language structure issues in the B4P spec as I was reading – please update from SVN.

Luc

Luc Clément

Active Endpoints, Inc

+1.978.793.2162 | luc.clement@activevos.com

Updates to HT

Section 2.5 HT:

Section 2.5 of HT states in the last sentence of para 1 the following: "A WS-HumanTask Definition MUST comply with definitions introduced in this section. "

Yet... the syntax presented in section 2.5.1 is informal in nature. If the intention is to ensure that every concept (expressed as elements and attributes) depicted 2.5.1 MUST be implemented, we should state so. It seems to me though that this is not desirable (given the nature of the formulation presented in 2.5.1) and thus the last sentence of para 1 of 2.5 should be removed or softened. I would prefer that it be removed given it add little.

Updates to B4P

Section 3.1.1 Syntax (last para)

Changes were made to the last para of section 3.1.1 where “can” was replaced with “MAY”.

Only process-related human roles (replaced with) “can” (was) “MAY” be used within the <b4p:peopleAssignments> element. People are assigned to these roles as described in section 3.2 (“Assigning People”).

I have an issue with this given the use of “Only”. Unless we expand or make extensible the process-related human roles, we will need to couple “Only” with “MUST”.

Section 4.1.1

Section 4.1.1 was updated but “MUST not” should be changed to “MUST NOT” in the last sentence of this excerpt

bpel:fromParts: This element is used to assign values to multiple BPEL variables from an incoming multi-part WSDL message. The element is optional. Its syntax and semantics are introduced in the WS-BPEL 2.0 specification, section 10.3.1. The <bpel:fromParts> element and the outputVariable attribute are mutually exclusive. This element MUST not be used in a BPEL4People Definition if the people activity uses a notification.

4.5.3 Passing Endpoint References for Callbacks

The first sentence was updated replacing “must” with “MUST” as follows

A human task MUST send a response message back to its calling process

However, a Human Task doesn’t send a response, the “human task Web service” does. We need to change the text adding “Web service”:

A human task Web service MUST send a response message back to its calling process

Appendix B. Portability and Interoperability Considerations

I'm of the opinion that appendices should never be normative. The changes made to this appendix (i.e. "BPEL4People Processor MUST support of" where "BPEL4People Processor MUST" was introduced) are not warranted and should be reverted back to the original text.