Statement of Use

Last week I discussed the Statements of Use requirement with Chet Ensign. I explained that we want to assert that the statements provided for v1.1 [1] should satisfy the requirements for v1.1.1 because:

1. The namespaces are the same

2. The schemas are the same

3. Functional changes are explicitly not allowed by the WSS-M [2] charter
The purpose of this TC is to perform ongoing maintenance on the OASIS Standards of Web Services Security 1.1 and token profiles produced by the Web Services Security (WSS) TC, which is now closed. The work is defined as: any drafting or development work to modify the indicated OASIS Standards that (a) constitutes only error corrections, bug fixes or editorial formatting changes; and (b) does not add any new features, and (c) is within the scope of the Web Services Security TC that approved the OASIS Standard.

Chet’s opinion is that this does not meet the requirement because the “Statement of Use” definition says you must identify the specific clauses to which you claim conformance. BTW, in case you weren’t aware, the TC Process doc changed again so I have included the definition from the current version and the previous version.

Definition from current TC Process [3]

"Statement of Use", with respect to a Committee Specification, is a written statement by an OASIS Organizational Member stating that it is successfully using or implementing that specification in accordance with the conformance clauses specified in Section 2.18, identifying those clauses that apply, and stating whether its use included the interoperation of multiple independent implementations. A Statement of Use must be endorsed by the Organizational Member's Primary Representative.

Definition from previous version of TC Process [4]

"Statement of Use", with respect to a Committee Specification, is a written statement by an OASIS Organizational Member stating that it is successfully using or implementing that specification in accordance with the conformance clauses specified in Section 2.18, and stating whether its use included the interoperation of multiple independent implementations.

I have also included the relevant text from from Section 2.18 [5]

(8) Conformance Clauses.

(8a) For Standards Track Work Products:

A specification that is approved by the TC at the Committee Specification Public Review Draft, Committee Specification or OASIS Standard level must include a separate section, listing a set of numbered conformance clauses, to which any implementation of the specification must adhere in order to claim conformance to the specification (or any optional portion thereof).

Chet’s recommendation is that we get three of the TC members to submit new SoU for the current spec. The reasoning is that if one can claim compliance with v1.1 then, based on the three points I listed above, one should also be able to claim compliance with v1.1.1.

Thoughts?

David

[1] http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/wss/200512/msg00006.html

[2] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/wss-m/charter.php

[3] https://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process

[4] https://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process-2010-07-28

[5] https://www.oasis-open.org/policies-guidelines/tc-process#specQuality

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