RE: [ebxml-msg] conformance section in MS

[David Fischer <david@drummondgroup.com>]

Title: conformance section in MS

Jacques,

 

This is what the spec says now.  Please add an additional sentence or two for "strong/weak conformance" and to make mention of other specifications.

 

1.3           Minimal Requirements for Conformance

An implementation of this specification MUST satisfy ALL of the following conditions to be considered a conforming implementation:

·          It supports all the mandatory syntax, features and behavior (as identified by the [RFC2119] key words MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL and SHALL NOT) defined in Part I – Core Functionality.

·          It supports all the mandatory syntax, features and behavior defined for each of the additional module(s), defined in Part II – Additional Features, the implementation has chosen to implement.

·          If it has implemented optional syntax, features and/or behavior defined in this specification, it MUST be capable of interoperating with another implementation that has not implemented the optional syntax, features and/or behavior.  It MUST be capable of processing the prescribed failure mechanism for those optional features it has chosen to implement.

·          It is capable of interoperating with another implementation that has chosen to implement optional syntax, features and/or behavior, defined in this specification, it has chosen not to implement. Handling of unsupported features SHALL be implemented in accordance with the prescribed failure mechanism defined for the feature.

 

Thanks,

 

David Fischer

Drummond Group

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacques Durand [mailto:JDurand@fs.fujitsu.com]
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 8:23 PM
To: 'david@drummondgroup.com'; 'ian.c.jones@bt.com'
Cc: 'pdesmedt@agentisinternational.com'; 'ebxml-msg@lists.oasis-open.org'
Subject: [ebxml-msg] conformance section in MS

David, Ian,

"Editorial" point on conformance section again...:

As it was agreed to move a more detailed MS conformance clause (with levels or profiles) out of the spec document,
and into a separate document (probably the implementation guidelines), I think it is rather redundant to
have any conformance description at all in the spec body.

This being said,  if we still want to insert a basic conformance requirement (e.g. based on Chris' draft), then I would
suggest the following rewording, so that there is no confusion in readers mind:

1- Instead of "Implementation conformance", use  title : "Minimal (or general) requirements for conformance",
as a more detailed conformance clause will expand on this section in another document.

2- in (b), "optional module(s)" should be replaced by "additional module(s)" to be consistent with spec wording.

3-  Insert a mention that more details on conformance profiles and their implementation
will be found in a companion document ("MS implementation guidelines") to be published soon after.

Besides this, I still want to point out that the RFC 2119 keyword explanation (referred in (a) of Chris draft)
- especially for optional features - is not enough to remove any ambiguity when implementing.
That is the whole point of strong vs. weak conformance definitions.

So I would either insert the strong/weak conformance definitions and refer to them, or simply say in (a) that the
core features/modules must always be implemented as specified in Part I.
(and we would also move these definitions in the implementation guidelines)

Regards,

Jacques Durand
Fujitsu Software