summary of Conformance TC's Paris meeting

[Lynne Rosenthal <lynne.rosenthal@nist.gov>]

Hello All

Below is a Summary of June 14th, Paris
meeting of the Interoperability and Conformance TC

The meeting was held June 14, 1600-1730, at the Palais des Congres, Paris
France. 
Attendees:  (voting or observer status is noted by ‘v’ or ‘o’
followed by the company affiliation)
   Lynne Rosenthal (v/NIST) and Mark Skall (v/NIST) 
cochairs
   Mary Brady (v/NIST), Lisa Carnahan (o/NIST), Carmelo
Montanez (o/NIST)
   Lofton Henderson (v/--), Ken Holman (o/Crane Softwrights
Ltd.), Karl Best (o/OASIS) 

Topics of discussion:

0. Status of the TC
The TC is an official OASIS TC.  Web space on the OASIS server has
been requested. 
Terminology:  the term Test Suite refers to both the tests and the
accompanying documentation.  

1. Restatement of purpose.  
There was agreement on the Purpose statement.  The TC will discuss
and develop information (e.g., documents, white papers, quidelines)
related to general conformance issues.  The idea is that the work of
this TC would help to ‘jump start’ other OASIS TC’s whose purpose is to
develop conformance tests. 

2. Discussion of Deliverables 
Two of the deliverables were discussed: a guideline on conformance and
its related issues as well as criteria for member organizations to submit
tests to OASIS/NIST test development efforts.  Some of the
deliverables will need to be coordinated with other TCs for their input
(e.g., the criteria for test submission document). 

Guideline on Conformance.  This document would present general
information about conformance, including terminology and issues that
should be addressed when considering conformance.  If anyone has
such a document or would like to draft the document, please send it to
Lynne.  Additionally, we would like to create a ‘library’ of white
papers on conformance, so if anyone would like to contribute a paper or
the URL for the paper, please send it to Lynne.  

Criteria for Conformance Test Suite Submission.  The draft
circulated via email served as a base for discussion.  Ken Holman
stated that the XSL TC has also been discussing this topic.  Input,
comments, and suggestions from the other OASIS conformance development
TCs (e.g., XSL, XML) will be solicited.  The document will provide
general criteria that could apply to any conformance test development
effort.  The TCs developing conformance tests could use this
document as a basis on which they could add specific criteria for their
area.  If you are interested in helping to write this document,
please let Lynne know.  Also, please send any comments or
contributions on writing this document to Lynne. 

3. Relationship to other groups

3.1     

ebXML. 
---The ebXML Initiative is a joint UN/CEFACT and OASIS effort to lower
the barrier of entry to e-business for small and medium size businesses
and countries.  The ebXML Technical Architecture Group is
responsible for conformance for ebXML.  This TC could help provide
conformance information to their specification.  Lynne, Mark and
Norbert Mikula participated at their last meeting, leading the discussion
on conformance, including the need to have a conformance clause in the
ebXML specification and to make use of (or at least encourage the use of)
conformance tests for XML technologies

3.2     

W3C
-- W3C has started to be very concerned with developing conformance tests
along with their Recommendations.  They have advertised for a
Conformance Manager and within various committees have discussed
developing conformance tests. At this point, no one at our meeting knew
who this conformance manager was, nor who in W3C would be a person to
contact.  It was agreed that there seems to be a lack of
communication between OASIS and W3C with respect to conformance, that
there is a lot of synergy between the groups, and there is plenty of
opportunity to leverage the interests and resources of each group. 
It was agreed that there needs to be a strong liaison and cooperation
between W3C and OASIS.  Several possibilities of how W3C and OASIS
could work together were discussed, e.g., W3C develops test assertions
and OASIS develops the executable test suites.  
ACTION: make contact with W3C and pursue discussions on conformance and
synergy.  This may be something for OASIS BoD to pursue along with
this TC.  If possible, it would be good to arrange a meeting between
appropriate W3C and OASIS people.  

4. New Areas  Topic Maps
It was suggested that Topic Maps might be a potential new area for
conformance work.  Our TC could help to raise awareness of
conformance (e.g., the need to consider conformance when writing the
specification, test development, etc.).  Work on topic maps is being
done in SC34 WG3.

5. Awareness
Part of what this TC and OASIS can do is to promote conformance as a good
thing.  Several ideas were suggested
including:

-       making people aware of conformance.  (we can do some of this by putting various white papers about conformance on our web space.)

-       

get
major companies to contribute to test development efforts

-       

let
people know that you don’t need to contribute lots of tests.

-       

Norbert
does an excellent job talking about conformance and the work begin done
in OASIS at various conferences.   

6.Next meeting and future work.
No future meeting or teleconference was scheduled.  Work will be
conducted via email.  If a meeting or teleconference is necessary,
it will be arranged via email


Lynne

Lynne S. Rosenthal

NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8970

Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8970

(301)975-3353, fax (301)948-6213

lynne.rosenthal@nist.gov