RE: [oiic-formation-discuss] Charter and Deliverables: the "State of Interoperability" assessment activity

["Dennis E. Hamilton" <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>]

Dave, this

 "28 people respond with individual views on whether X is conformant/interoperable."

creates a straw man that is neither intended nor presupposed at all. I think I derailed you by the use of "survey," and there are now substitutes for that on the table.  

(See http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oiic-formation-discuss/200808/msg00016.html)

What's your proposal for expressing this in a way that suits you?  Whatever it is, it is something left for the TC to bring down from the high-altitude scope to grounded practical effort.  

 - Dennis

Dennis E. Hamilton
------------------
NuovoDoc: Design for Document System Interoperability 
mailto:Dennis.Hamilton@acm.org | gsm:+1-206.779.9430 
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EXTENDED COMMENTARY

The purpose of the proposed scope item is to ensure that whatever approach is taken to initial appraisal of the state of conformance and interoperability has some objective merit.  I wanted to ensure that the OIC TC puts in some effort toward that, being accountable (not a deliverable, as Rob Weir clarified) for the approach, the data, and the extraction of findings.  

I don't think it is about collecting people's opinions about products.  The idea is to identify cases of non-conformance and failed interoperability that are the low hanging pain points at each turn of the appraisal cycle.  This serves to ensure identification of high-value, priority targets in the subsequent development/expansion of conformance-assessment specifications.  

I was not using "survey" in the narrow sense that you interpreted; I think the substitution of "appraisal" is better for avoiding that.  It might be good to also indicate that we are not rating products but looking for the areas where non-conformance and non-interoperability are significant concerns (by some measure of "significant").

Capability to do the work is always a consideration.  That's what had me propose this in front of proposal 0.3's scope item (1).



-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Pawson
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oiic-formation-discuss/200808/msg00017.html
Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2008 23:48
To: oiic-formation-discuss
Subject: Re: [oiic-formation-discuss] Charter and Deliverables: the "State of Interoperability" assessment activity

2008/8/10 Dennis E. Hamilton <dennis.hamilton@acm.org>:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oiic-formation-discuss/200808/msg00012.html
> SUGGESTION:
>
> Add to 1c. Scope of Work
>
> "0.     Development and progressive improvement of a methodology for
> carrying out impartial surveys of the current state of conformance and
> interoperability among ODF implementations and for reporting the results of
> such surveys."
>
> (Adjust item 1 accordingly, if needed.  I considered merging this into item
> 1 but decided it made things too unwieldy.)


-1 as stands.  Too subjective.

28 people respond with individual views on whether X is
conformant/interoperable.

How to draw objective conclusions from that.

Other concern is the expertise/effort needed to design+carry out such a survey
(or however else you gather the information).

[ ... ]