Interoperability definition (RE: Only include implemented features in a draft standard)

At 20:20 18.06.2000 +0200, Jacob Palme wrote:
>I thought interoperability meant that one implementation
>could receive what another implementation produced. You say
>that interoperability means that two implementations will
>handle the same manually generated input in the same way.
>Is that really right? Or is that a special variant of
>interoperability, to be applied to "receive-only" specs,
>while "send-and-receive" specs will still be tested by
>testing that one implementation can receive what another
>implementation sends?

When in doubt, read the specification.

RFC 2026, section 4.1.2:

"For the purposes of this section, "interoperable" means to be functionally 
equivalent or interchangeable components of the system or process in which 
they are used."

So two MTAs reacting identically to the same telnet session on port 25 are 
interoperable, even though they never connect to each other.

              Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, EDB Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@edb.maxware.no