Re: What to do with WoT Profiles 1.0

Hi Sebastian,

Thank you for expressing an opinion on this topic, I had hoped the draft
resolution might provoke some more discussion!

I agree with your suggestions about Profiles 2.0/TD 2.0 and I'm pleased we
have high level agreement on that future direction.

However, I am still not completely convinced that Profiles 1.0 must be
abandoned (published as a Note).

Sebastian wrote:

> profile-based TDs are no longer a true subset of the TD1.1 spec and not
> compliant to the WoT paradigm


Actually the *Thing Descriptions* of profile-compliant Things *are* a
subset of the TD 1.1 specification, at least with the current set of
profiles. They have been carefully designed such that a Consumer which does
not implement a given profile will just fall back to the defaults in the
protocol binding template and the Thing will still behave as the Consumer
expects.

The way in which profiles do extend beyond the capabilities of binding
templates is that they may progressively enhance a Thing by adding
additional implicit behaviour (e.g. for querying or cancelling an action)
which a conformant Consumer can consume, but which is not explicitly
described in the Thing Description. They do not do this to subvert or be
incompatible with the binding templates, but to work around their current
limitations, because it is otherwise not possible to unambiguously describe
the full set of operations.

In addition, the WoT Binding Templates document no longer has any value, as
> the implementer does not know whether a different binding paradigm is
> followed somewhere else


I don't quite agree with this. The current set of profiles are fully
compatible with and build upon the defaults from from the HTTP binding
template. Brownfield devices can be described using the vocabulary from the
binding template, and greenfield devices can implement a profile to be
progressively enhanced with additional functionality and enjoy
out-of-the-box interoperability guarantees. Profiles and binding templates
are therefore compatible, if currently in a slightly awkward way.

Having said all of that, I agree that this is not a neat or satisfying
solution, and understand that it is architecturally difficult to implement
in node-wot, which is designed around the (non-normative) Scripting API.

Given that there are already multiple implementations of profiles (with
limitations) even without node-wot, it's not impossible to imagine that
Profiles 1.0 could continue along the REC track even without that
implementation.

It would therefore be useful to again clarify whether Siemens feel strongly
enough about this issue to formally object to the publication of Profiles
1.0 as a Recommendation using the current approach, or whether you would
simply choose not to implement the specification.

I would be willing (as an editor and implementer) to skip to Profiles 2.0
if completely necessary, but I don't want to abandon the work on Profiles
1.0 (and the significant work which has already gone into implementing it)
unnecessarily. My company's commercial timelines can't wait another two
years or so for a 2.0 solution so will need to ship regardless.

Kind regards

Ben


On Tue, 4 Jun 2024 at 18:06, Kaebisch, Sebastian <
sebastian.kaebisch@siemens.com> wrote:

> Hi Ben, all,
>
>
>
> thank you very much for your emails. As I have been on holiday for the
> last 2 weeks, I am only now getting around to replying.
>
>
>
> I am surprised by the resolution draft, as it contains a conflict that we
> have already expressed several times in the past such as in [1] and [2]:
>
>
>
> “...Profiles 1.0 profile specifications are allowed to define protocol
> bindings that go beyond what can currently be described with binding
> templates…“
>
>
>
> Taking this into account, profile-based TDs are no longer a true subset of
> the TD1.1 spec and not compliant to the WoT paradigm. In addition, the WoT
> Binding Templates document no longer has any value, as the implementer does
> not know whether a different binding paradigm is followed somewhere else.
>
>
>
> My assumption is, if the Profile has specific demands on the binding
> definitions such as implicit assumptions of async actions, it should be
> clarified in the official WoT binding document and not somewhere else.
> Since this topic will be also discuss in the new charter in the TD2.0 /
> Binding TF, it would more make sense to release Profile as Note so far and
> publish Profile 2.0 as REC that harmonize perfectly with TD 2.0 (this would
> correspond to your Option 2 below).
>
>
>
> BR
>
> Sebastian
>
>
>
> [1] https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/issues/259#issuecomment-1210767631
>
> [2] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wot-wg/2024Apr/0022.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Von: *Ben Francis <ben@krellian.com>
> *Datum: *Dienstag, 4. Juni 2024 um 15:38
> *An: *public-wot-wg@w3.org <public-wot-wg@w3.org>
> *Betreff: *Re: What to do with WoT Profiles 1.0
>
> Thank you again for the feedback so far. We've now gone over a month with
> no further feedback so I assume that anyone who had opinions to share have
> now shared it.
>
>
>
> We have now landed several PRs (#407
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/pull/407>, #408
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/pull/408> and #411
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/pull/411>) which address some of that
> feedback and have proposed refinements (#412
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/pull/412> and #414
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/pull/414>) of the Motivation section
> and Explainer to help clarify the purpose of Profiles. There are still a
> couple of other refinements that I think could be made to further address
> the feedback given here (#403
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/issues/403> and #404
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/issues/404>) which we will address in
> due course, but I would like to encourage the Working Group to now move
> towards a decision in order to unblock the work of the Profiles task force.
>
>
>
> Following a discussion in the Profiles task force call today, I would like
> to put forward draft resolution text (based on option 1 proposed above) as
> a starting point for *a discussion in the WoT Main call tomorrow*. This
> resolution would establish Working Group consensus to continue with the
> current approach taken by the Profiles specification for WoT 1.0 (assuming
> enough implementations emerge), with a view to then taking a more
> structured approach
> <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wot-wg/2024Feb/0000.html> in
> WoT 2.0.
>
>
>
> *Draft resolution:* We agree as a Working Group that for Profiles 1.0
> profile specifications are allowed to define protocol bindings that go
> beyond what can currently be described with binding templates, as a more
> prescriptive but unambiguous option to guarantee interoperability between
> greenfield implementations. The Profiles task force will work towards a
> Candidate Recommendation of profiles 1.0, publicise a request for
> implementations, and if there are sufficient implementations then proceed
> to Proposed Recommendation.
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
>
> Ben
>
>
>
> On Wed, 29 May 2024 at 16:35, Ben Francis <ben@krellian.com> wrote:
>
> Just a reminder that there is still no resolution to this question.
>
>
>
> Thank you to everyone who has responded so far, and there are open issues
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/issues> and pull requests
> <https://github.com/w3c/wot-profile/pulls> to address some of the
> specific feedback that has come out of that discussion (some of which has
> now been resolved), but we still don't have an answer to the high level
> question.
>
>
>
> I understand there is currently discussion about how to "revitalise" the
> Profile task force, but the task force can't really make any progress until
> a wider consensus is reached on whether to continue with the specification
> in its current form.  Until that question is answered Profile task force
> meetings seem fairly pointless, which might be why so few people are
> attending them.
>
>
>
> I think we need to hear a wider set of opinions on the two options
> proposed (or alternative proposals) before we know which to put forward as
> a formal resolution:
>
>
>
> *Option 1*
> Agree as a Working Group that for Profiles 1.0 profile specifications are
> allowed to define protocol bindings that go beyond what can currently be
> described with binding templates, as a more prescriptive but unambiguous
> option to guarantee interoperability between greenfield implementations.
> Publish a Candidate Recommendation, publicise a request for
> implementations, and if there are sufficient implementations then proceed
> to Proposed Recommendation.
>
> *Option 2*
> Decide now that profiles must only constrain what is already possible with
> binding templates in TD 1.1, discontinue the approach taken in WoT Profiles
> 1.0, publish the current text as a Working Group Note and start work on a
> Profiles 2.0 specification which takes a different approach.
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
>
> Ben
>
>
>
> On Mon, 29 Apr 2024 at 13:39, Luca Barbato <luca.barbato@luminem.it>
> wrote:
>
> On 29/04/24 12:03, Kazuyuki Ashimura wrote:
> > Hi Luca, Ben, Ege and all,
> >
> > Given the following:
> >
> > 1. It's the Golden Week this week and many of the Japanese
> >     participants (including myself) can't join this discussion.
>
> Being an email brainstorming (more or less), I hope we won't need
> immediate response from members, hopefully once you are back from the
> Golden Week we'll have a good summary for everybody to discuss :)
>   > 2. This discussion is getting very long and it seems to me it would be
> >     difficult to solve the problem via email.
> >
> > 3. We've already started to discuss what to be handled by the WoT Profile
> >     specification during the Pofile calls.
> >
> > I strongly would suggest we talk about the topic here, What to do with
> > WoT Profile 1.0", during the upcoming Profiles calls. Maybe it might
> > make sense to have additional dedicated virtual f2f meeting for this
> > topic also.
>
> I had few voice call on it and I'm trying to keep notes of everything
> being said, email threads make my life simpler with summarizing, we can
> continue a bit the discussion on the issues Ben opened or off-list in
> case the noise is a bit too much.
>
> lu
>
>