Re: profiles/modules/levels -- 1 of 2

Le mar 22/04/2003 à 21:07, Lofton Henderson a écrit :
> I see profiles and levels as conceptually different.  Current definitions:
> 
> functional level
> -----
> "4. Definitions" -- a technology subset that is one of a hierarchy of 
> nested subsets, ranging from minimal or core functionality to full or 
> complete functionally.
>
> profile
> -----
> "4. Definitions" -- a subset of a technology that is tailored to meet 
> specific functional requirements of a particular application community. A 
> profile may address a single technology; or, a profile can also group a set 
> of technologies (i.e., from different specifications) and define how they 
> operate together. Profiles may be based on hardware considerations 
> associated with target product classes, or they may be driven by other 
> functional requirements of their target communities.

I agree they are different. My point is that levels are a subclass of
profiles, not that they are the same. Given our current definition of
profiles though, I have to say it is more that profiles and levels are
subclasses of a same concept (but I think we could generalize our
definition of profile a bit for sake of simplicity).

> As we have agreed, there is nothing in the definitions that *prohibits* 
> levels from being called profiles instead.  (Btw, IMO we will *not* succeed 
> in coming up with useful definitions that are tight enough to prohibit 
> misuse of the concept.  More in next message, but briefly ... I think we 
> can start to steer specifications towards a common, agreed usage of the 
> concepts with a combination of definitions, discussion, and examples.)
> 
> But I think there are examples where calling a leveled technology 
> "profiles" is awkward and inappropriate. [...]

All of this re-enforces my idea that we are confusing 2 issues: labeling
and formalizing. I'm of course all for a consistent usage of
denominations by the specifications, and I would not want to see the
term profile used where the term level is currently used. But the fact
that this different terminology is useful shouldn't hide the fact that
levels are just one kind of profile! More specifically, I've nothing
against the fact that SpecGL defines both profiles and levels, but I
think we don't need to distinguish them in terms of DoV/GL, because we
could fit any level-specific CP (which currently is only the cross-DoV
CP) into the more generic profile GL/CP.

Dom
-- 
Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
W3C/ERCIM
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