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Subject: RE: [tag-discuss] Charter talks (formerly: RE: Keep It Simple: some options)
All:
The discussion list has been up
for about 1 month, and so far I can say it has raised a level of interest beyond
expectation, for a topic sometimes perceived as rather abstract and
unglamorous...
From what the list shows, we seem to be at a point where a
charter can be drafted with good chances to gather enough support.
NOTE
on the charter exercise:
As David reports, OASIS favors TCs with a precisely
scoped, well-qualified set of deliverables (and of activities).
This is
largely due to legal matters (new IPR policy).
Given the small number of
neurons available for legal matters in my brain, I' ll try to illustrate the
rationale in concrete terms as I understand it:
- if you become member of
a TC, your company is legally bound to the TC IPR mode regarding any output
produced by the TC, which means your company is very much restricted in its use
and rights of the intellectual property produced in the TC deliverables -
regardless whether contributed by you or others. So the narrower the charter
scope, the less likely this output will infringe on your existing or future
company IP or patents, and the easier it may be for a company to adhere to the
TC.
So that is why we try to be precise in terms of TC output (and of TC
topics of work).
In terms of charter, abstracting from feedback on this
list, here is an option for what is within scope (process for the TC to produces
these, e.g. serialized/parallel, is left out):
1- a Test
Assertion Guideline (TAG): an English narrative including definitions, abstract
model / structure, methodology and example showing how to extract TAs from a
target specification.
2- an XML notation for the TA model/structure in
the TAG deliverable, possibly augmented of an additional notation (e.g. modeling
notation) that may be complementary to the XML notation.
Note
that this is not as detailed as what has been proposed e.g. by David - but I
hope it strikes a balance between the essence of these proposals, and the bit
of flexibility needed in a
charter?
Comments?
Regards,
Jacques
-----Original
Message-----
From: david_marston@us.ibm.com [mailto:david_marston@us.ibm.com]
Sent:
Friday, December 08, 2006 8:35 AM
To:
tag-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [tag-discuss] RE: Keep It Simple:
some options
Maybe the following is agreeable for a charter
draft?
1. First the TC would develop an abstract structure for a
test
assertion (TA). Back on December 3rd, I sent an example
that defined
three components of a TA: multiple contingencies,
one stimulus, and
one result. I just made that up to show that
components are not
necessarily complex and scary. After having
defined components,
publsihing them with a Request For Comments
or doing some form of
outreach would be appropriate, but I
hesitate to call this a
"deliverable" of the TC.
2. After
getting some feedback on the abstract structure, the TC
would
issue a document that describes how the structure could be
manifest as English sentences. This would be a deliverable.
3. Either
simultaneously with (2) or after, the TC would issue a
document
that specifies an XML notation for the same structure.
Among the
requirements would be a simple identifier attribute for
each and
every TA that allows citation of individual TAs.
Either (2) or (3) would also
provide the desirable qualities of any "fixed wording" parts, which use wording
specific to the domain of the spec. In other words, a set of TAs should share
domain-specific words (especially nouns and adjectives) among the TAs in such a
way that similarities and dependencies are visible.
Patrick Curran
wrote:
>If the TC achieved no more than this (encouraging spec authors
to
>create test assertions and defining a simple markup) I would be
very
>pleased.
I say that if the expectations are too low, we could
avoid having a TC and just discuss this on a Wiki, then issue something that
resembles a W3C Note. I was talking with OASIS staffer Mary McRae last night at
the XML 2006 conference, and she said OASIS is now favoring TCs with small sets
of deliverables, but I think there is such a thing as too small. I think
producing XML that divides the assertion element into components of some kind is
a bare minimum to justify forming a TC.
.................David
Marston
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