Conf Call Meeting Minutes : 31 March 2003

["Michael Kass" <michael.kass@nist.gov>]

Title: Next call Monday 31 and more

IIC Conference Call Minutes: 31 March, 2003

 

Attendance:

 

Mike Kass (NIST)

Jacques Durand (Fujitsu)

Monica Martin (Sun)

JeffEck (GXS)

Steve Yung (Sun)

Pete Wenzel (SeeBeyond)

Tak Sakach (Drake Certivo)

Serm Kulvatunyou (NIST)

 

Notes:

 

Minute Recording:

It was agreed to rotate minute taking among TC members on a “per meeting” basis. Mike Kass volunteered to take the minutes of this meeting.

 

Interoperabilty Parameters as Metadata for Test Filtering:

Monica Martin addressed the possible need to “tag” test cases or test requirements based upon the interoperability parameters described in the specification, as a way to permit a test driver to “filter” of test requirements or test cases based upon these values.  Some of these values already exist in the “ConfigurationGroup” element of test suite XML, but others do not. 

It was decided to wait on defining such metadata until a later version release of the specification.

 

Required vs. Recommended Conformance Testing Prior to Interop Testing:

Tim Sakach suggested that conformance testing prior to interop testing be defined as “recommended” in the specification, not a requirement.   This would help to lower the barrier to participation and use of the IIC Test Framework. 

 

Conformance Clause in BIP Specification:

The issue of “badging” or “certifying” a candidate implementation’s conformance or interoperability was discussed in the call.  Pete Wenzel suggested that it would be better to actually have a testing service in place before including such text in the specification. Further discussion continued about who sets up such certification authority, and if OASIS currently has such authority.  It was determined that OASIS does not “badge” implementations of its specification, and that in order to do so, it would likely go outside of OASIS to set up such an entity.  Because of the legal issues involved in including such a conformance or interoperability clause in the specification, especially without an existing certification authority, it was determined that the conformance clause currently in the BIP specification would be removed.  However, disclaimer that conformance does not guarantee interoperability, and that interoperability does not guarantee conformance will remain in the specification document.

 

Executable Test Cases External to Specification:

Mike Kass suggested moving the executable BIP Test Suite XML outside of the BIP specification, as an external normative reference.  The reasoning is:  if the executable test suite is part of the BIP Specification, then every significant change to the executable test suite would require a “revote” of the specification, whereas, leaving the test case descriptions only in the document means that implementation of the test cases may change to the external document, but that at revote would not be required.  Mike Kass is doing to modify the BIP Specification to reflect this change.

 

Changes to Interoperability Parameter Tables:

Jacques suggested changing SyncReply to “signalsAndResponse” vs. current “responseOnly”

 

Monica suggests leaving in “Confidentiality” and “Authentication” in BIP parameter tables, even though they are not needed for BIP. They will be left in.

 

Test Framework Document Issue:

Jacques pointed out that the current description in the Test Framework document describing what is returned in the “Dummy” action response is inadequate.. not considering signals as additional material in a response message.  Jacques will modify the description accordingly.

 

Test Case 1.9 has incorrect sequence diagram:

Jacques noted that sequence diagram for test case 1.9 is incorrect regarding synchronous/asynchronous labeling of request and response.  Will leave that for Jacques or Steve to correct.

 

Initial document for edit/review distributed on Wednesday, April 2

Mike Kass will edit the spec based upon comments and distribute the diff and merged versions for review and modification prior to next conference call.

 

Next Conference Call:

Monday, April 7 - Times and call details to follow