Re: [cti] Text around bundle

Here is some proposed text which use ideas from all suggestions:

A Bundle is a collection of arbitrary STIX Objects grouped together in a single container. Objects contained with a Bundle SHOULD NOT be assumed to be related solely by virtue of being in the same Bundle. Producers who wish to indicate that objects are related are encouraged to use SROs within the Bundle or the Report object to do so.

From: <cti@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of John Wunder <jwunder@mitre.org>
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 1:52 PM
To: Patrick Maroney <oasis.individual@gmail.com>
Cc: "cti@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: Re: [cti] Text around bundle

Hm, we could add a sentence like: “Producers who wish to indicate that objects are related should use SROs and the Report object to do so.”

From: <cti@lists.oasis-open.org> on behalf of Patrick Maroney <oasis.individual@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 1:41 PM
To: John Wunder <jwunder@mitre.org>
Cc: "cti@lists.oasis-open.org" <cti@lists.oasis-open.org>
Subject: Re: [cti] Text around bundle

I think Allan's points are good. Can we add language in the Bundle descriptions that shows how one would make the assertion that objects in a bundle ARE related?

On Tuesday, November 15, 2016, Wunder, John A. <jwunder@mitre.org> wrote:

All,

One of the other topics we talked about on the working call today was the normative text around Bundle.

In RC3, the text (Part 1, Section 5) stated:

“A Bundle is a collection of arbitrary STIX Objects grouped together in a single container. A Bundle does not have any semantic meaning and objects in the same Bundle are not necessarily related. Objects MUST NOT be considered related by virtue of being in the same Bundle.”

The suggestion from Allan is to modify that text to say:

“A Bundle is a collection of arbitrary STIX Objects grouped together in a single container. The objects in the same Bundle are not necessarily related. Objects SHOULD NOT be considered related by virtue of being in the same Bundle.”

Allan can elaborate but his thinking was that:

-          In the second sentence, the clause “A bundle does not have any semantic meaning” is itself meaningless and doesn’t help people understand bundles.

-          In the last sentence, the normative statement is inherently untestable and therefore shouldn’t be a MUST

The counterpoints that I heard to changing it were:

-          We need to be as clear as possible, because people have gotten it wrong before.

-          Other normative statements aren’t testable, but it can still be worthwhile to put them in.

The other suggestion was that rather than changing it to a should, the text could just say “Objects are not considered related by virtue of being in the same bundle.” That removes the untestable normative statement and makes it part of the definition of bundle.

Before trying to drive this to consensus, let’s just get some thoughts on the best text to use. Most importantly, do you think there should be a normative MUST?

Also, I know we as a community went around for a bit on bundle, but the encouraging thing at this point is that we all fundamentally agree that bundles don’t have meaning. We’re just trying to find the best way to phrase it. So that’s good!

John

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IcA5KhglNdyX3tO17bBluC5nqSf70M5qgK9nuAoYJgw/edit#heading=h.rvtdrdkf1jdv

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