Re: [sca-assembly] Concerns raised by Siemens

[Mike Edwards <mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com>]

Jim,

Here are my responses to your points,
done inline as <mje>...</mje>

Yours,  Mike.

Strategist - Emerging Technologies, SCA & SDO.
Co Chair OASIS SCA Assembly TC.
IBM Hursley Park, Mail Point 146, Winchester, SO21 2JN, Great Britain.
Phone & FAX: +44-1962-818014    Mobile: +44-7802-467431  
Email:  mike_edwards@uk.ibm.com

From:	Jim Marino <jim.marino@gmail.com>
To:	OASIS Assembly <sca-assembly@lists.oasis-open.org>
Date:	20/01/2010 17:10
Subject:	Re: [sca-assembly] Concerns raised by Siemens

---

Sure. Here they are:

1. There are no technical objections. The issue is about
how to enforce items A & B mentioned above? [Note, items A and B where
described by Mike as:

" a) A specification or document that describes the
implementation type and its relationship to the Assembly model, in particular
the
      componentType derivation must be
spelled out in detail. 

  b) A version of the test suite using the implementation type must
be run against the runtime"]
 

2. Why was the "copyleft" style license unsatisfactory?
<mje>
A license of the "GPL"
style is unacceptable to IBM.  Period.
We will never vote
in favour of such a license.

My understanding is
that other companies who are members of the TC have a similar view.
</mje>


3. What guarantees are in place to ensure a vendor claiming
conformance to the existing SCA specifications does in fact conform? I'm
assuming there is nothing legally binding and the only check in place is
"public opinion". 
<mje>
There is nothing legally
binding that anyone claiming conformance to the SCA specs actually does
conform.

You're right, the conformance
claims are subject to the "court of public opinion".

One of the items under
debate here is exactly what is required in order to make this court of
public opinion work effectively.

The existence of a
test suite is meant to help here - in principle, it should be possible
to get hold of the test suite and run it
against any runtime
claiming conformance to SCA.  While this cannot guarantee that the
runtime conforms to all the normative
statements of the SCA
specs, it should give assurance that it does conform to a high proportion,
and that it does so in a way
that has a consistent
interpretation of the specification.

So, for a runtime that
ONLY supports some new implementation type, there is a concern to ensure
that there is a valid version
of the test suite available.
 This is one of the points that proves to be tricky.

The second point is
that logically, if there is a new implementation type, it is only possible
to make sense of that type if there
is a document that
defines it in SCA terms - so that an implementation artifact can be understood
in terms of the SCA Assembly
model.  This is
the second point at debate - how is it possible to require the availability
of such a document (I'm assuming that
we can define the contents
of such a document in a straightforward fashion, although it might take
considerable work to write
it down...)

Without both of these
items in place, a vendor could make a claim of conformance that the "court
of public opinion" would be
unable to check in
an effective way - which would mean that such a claim of conformance would
have no meaning.
</mje>


4. What guarantees are in place to ensure a vendor makes
their software and any necessary artifacts to run the SCA conformance tests
available? Again, I'm assuming there is nothing legally binding and the
only check in place is "public opinion". 
<mje>
Agreed - same issue
that is debated above.

For the SCA runtime,
we can assume that it is available somehow - but it may be that it is only
available under commercial terms to
customers who pay.
 Fair enough.  That may also be true for the test suite and for
the document(s) describing new implementation
types.  And that
is a problem, since if availability is restricted,  then that's like
rigging a jury - some of the people who might best
be able to pass judgement
on the document, the (modified) test suite and the conformance claims may
not be able to see or use
any of the materials.
 Customer may not even be able to consult the "outside experts"
legally.

This is a knotty problem.

If the test suite didn't
have to be adapted, then things would be a bit easier.  But we're
not in that place...
</mje>



I'm also a little puzzled as to why the issue was closed
with no action instead of deferred until 1.2, particularly if it is the
desire of TC members to revisit the issue in that timeframe? There seems
to be precedent for deferring issues, such as Assembly eventing and conversations.
<mje>
I don't recall the
debate in the F2F about this, but I don't think it makes much practical
difference.

You're welcome to raise
an issue against 1.2 on this topic.
</mje>


Jim

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