notes from F2F on conformance - this time with presentation attac hed!

[Robert Griffin <Robert.Griffin@entrust.com>]

Title: notes from F2F on conformance - this time with presentation attached!

hi -

i've attached below the presentation i did on conformance at the F2F. There were a couple of issues that came up during the presentation, or at other times during the F2F:

- The most important issue was whether binary compliance/no-compliance was sufficient. The general consensus (in contrast to what Krishna and i suggested in the presentation) was that there needed to be levels or areas of compliance. For example, an implementation that supported the HTTP binding but not the BEEP binding should still be considered compliant with regard to that binding. Similarly, an implementation that consumed assertions but did not produce them could also be considered compliant within its particular area of implementation.

- There was also considerable interest in having at least a strawman for conformance criteria available by next F2F in early June. Several SAML members are already looking at starting reference implementations (or have already begun them, based on earlier submissions to SAML), so we need to start working out the approach to and scope of conformance.

- The question of any OASIS requirements was raised; the only one noted was the expectation of having 3 reference implementations in place before the standard is submitted for a vote (target September).

In the presentation, we had identified 3 major areas of work for the subgroup: 1) reviewing the spec for conformance issues etc; 2) writing the conformance part of the spec; 3) working with implementers, including building/coordinating a test harness for compliance. Given the comments in the F2F, i think it's time to start on the second area? Here's a couple of next steps:

- Get comparable conformance information for other Oasis standards
- Sub-group brainstorming on compliance levels, etc
- Draft a strawman conformance section for the spec, including things like compliance levels, criteria for each level, process for demonstrating compliance.

Unless someone else is interested, i'm happy to spend some time next week gathering together conformance stuff from other standards. Krishna, should we try for a sub-group concall sometime like the week after next (that is, week of 7-May)?

regards,

bob

 

saml_conform_18apr01.ppt