Treatment of optional/ignorable attributes in framework and primer

Hi

I wanted to start some discussion on what I feel some ambiguity/assymetry in the way optional and ignorable attributes are covered in the framework and the primer. I don't want to open a bug and open a can of worms :-) but just to see if at least there's some agreement on what I'm going to say. If yes then perhaps some primer/framework text can be updated in this version of the spec or in the v.next

Framework : wsp:optional is just a syntactic shortcut, indicates the assertion will be present in one alternative and not in the other one
Primer :       wsp:optional expresses the capability/behaviour the client may optionally engage

When a provider uses wsp:optional assertions the primer's description is more applicable, the policy author thinks how the service can be accessed by the clients and uses wsp:optional assertions when appropriate. The framework description has a secondary role when a policy author creates a policy on the provider's side.
When a requester uses wsp:optional assertions only the framework description applies, the primer's decription does not seem to have any sense on the requester's side.

Framework : wsp:ignorable indicated this assertion is ignorable for the intersection purposes
Primer : "The wsp:Ignorable attribute allows providers to clearly indicate which policy assertions indicate behaviors that don't manifest on the wire and may not be of concern to a requester when determining policy compatibility. Using the wsp:Optional attribute would be incorrect in this scenario, since it would indicate that the behavior would not occur if the alternative without the assertion were selected. "

Similar to the way I described providers and requesters deal with wsp:optional...

Any comments ?


Thanks, Sergey


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