Re: [dxwg] Does "profile of" require all or some elements? (#802)

A specification with  no "conformance requirements" is a strange concept - even something like Dublin core has range declarations which are a constraint. If you narrow these, or narrow cardinality (i.e. make author mandatory) then profileOf is appropriate. These cases are all clear with the concept of constraints.

I think the "uses some vocabulary" phrase might actually be code for a more specific concept about "recommended usage where constraints are not testable". As far as I am concerned Profiles is silent about these - unless a community wants to elevate recommendations to a constraint: I can imagine a spec X (or community profile of it!) stating that more specialised profiles must "use the recommendations from X or provide an explicitly modelled alternative which a usage note stating why the recommendation wasnt considered appropriate".  IMHO such a requirement is a constraint, and elevates recommendations to a constraint in this context. (this is partly why we removed Base Specification as a class - its more about the role something plays than something intrinsic to a specification.

Not all constraints are expressible formally - but Profiles is quite happy for you to have a guidance note only.  At this stage there is no substantive change required, but some guidance around scope not including general re-use 

Definitions are already being addressed via a review #755  so the self-referential documentation style is being addressed elsewhere and this is no the place to reintroduce it. We must keep issues separate and linked if we are to make progress and avoid circular arguments.






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Received on Monday, 11 March 2019 21:35:27 UTC