Re: Versioning of EARL docs (was: Minor updates to requirements document)

Hi all,

Can we agree that the version of EARL is primarily determined by its 
Schema document? The three other specs (HTTP-in-RDF, Content-in-RDF and 
Pointers-in-RDF) are designed to be supplemental, which is alone of the 
reasons why they are WG Notes. IMHO, updating HTTP-in-RDF will usually 
not change the EARL fundamentals, and should therefore not require the 
version number to change. However, changes to the Schema document will 
typically have more direct consequences on EARL as a whole.

Having said that, we still need to address versioning of the supporting 
documents around EARL 1.0 Schema. We could:

# add a version number - for example "HTTP Vocabulary in RDF 3.2", this 
may sometimes become more ambiguous.

# use revision numbers - for example "HTTP Vocabulary in RDF (Third 
Edition)", this is useful if the changes are primarily refinements.

# use publication date - for example "HTTP Vocabulary in RDF, 9 January 
2010", this does not need any changes but is not as apparent.


Personally, I'd favor the second approach for at least HTTP-in-RDF and 
Content-in-RDF since we do not expect any major changes to these (maybe 
just some new headers or other refinement but nothing substantial).

NOTE: the support document for WCAG 2.0 do not have version numbers. It 
is currently expected that date references will be used to disambiguate 
between versions of the "Techniques" or "Understanding" documents.


Regards,
   Shadi


Johannes Koch wrote:
> Michael A Squillace schrieb:
>>> Clarification: My comments were not directly about the requirements
>>> document, but about versioning of our docs in general. I only stimbled
>>> about it when reading the requirement doc's abstract.
>> Understood.
>>
>>> Hmm. What's the version then for the Schema document (the core of EARL)?
>>> The schema document would then be titled
>>> "EARL 1.0 Schema 1.0"? :-)
>> For now, its version is 1.0 and its title is EARL Schema 1.0.
> 
> Actually, it is "Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0 Schema", in 
> short: "EARL 1.0 Schema", not "EARL Schema 1.0". So to me this looks 
> like the (unversioned) schema document for EARL (the vocabulary) 1.0. We 
> will have to rename it to "Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) Schema 
> 1.0".
> 
>>> Let's say, currently we have
>>> "EARL 1.0 Schema" version 1.0
>>> "Content-in-RDF" version 1.0
>>> ...
>>> in summa: EARL (the vocabulary) 1.0
>>> Now, only Content-in-RDF gets updated to version 1.1. Would that make
>>> EARL (the vocabulary) also go to version 1.1? How then would the schema
>>> document be titled? "EARL 1.1 Schema 1.0"?
>> Precisely, except that the title of the core schema is still EARL Schema
>> 1.0.
> 
> see above
> 
>> The other option, of course, is to not version the vocabulary itself 
>> at all
>> and version only the schema.  This seems misleading, though, since the
>> vocabulary is indeed made up of multiple specifications and, therefore,
>> would change if one of the specs changed. I'm not sure what W3C 
>> guidelines
>> about versioning come into play here. Will look into this before 
>> tomorrow's
>> call.
> 
> Yep
> 

-- 
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/ |
   WAI International Program Office Activity Lead   |
  W3C Evaluation & Repair Tools Working Group Chair |

Received on Tuesday, 23 June 2009 22:50:25 UTC