new CoP?

QAWG --

Something is missing in SpecGL Guideline 2 ([1]), and I don't know exactly 
where it should go...

Several standards (XHTML, SMIL, SVG1.1) define conformance requirements for 
what constitutes a "valid profile".  SMIL, for example, defines rules for 
"SMIL Host Language Conformance" [2], and it is obvious that the target of 
the requirements is conforming profiles -- what constitutes a valid SMIL 
language profile.  XHTML modularization is pretty much the same.  These are 
rules for people who are writing their own profiles of those languages, not 
for builders of products for a specific language profile.

The problem:  here we have conformance requirements for a class of product 
(profiles) that seem to be missing from the categorization list and the 
classification list at the start of GL.2 ([1]).

On the one hand, it seems like there should be an 8th category in the 
current numbered list of 1-7:  Rules for Profiles (or does it maybe fit 
into foundation/abstract?).  On the other hand, it seems like there should 
be another class of product in the bullet list:  Profiles.  But "profiles" 
seems to be really different sort of animal, than the other items in the 
list.

Any ideas?

I think a lot of our confusion in the wording around profiles has sprung 
from the fact that we were freely mixing two objects in our text and 
examples:  discussion of profile requirements on products (content, 
viewers, etc);  discussion of rules for profiles (i.e., in XHTML we really 
have a "profile for profiles", or meta-profile.)

I have started to clarify the wording in GL.3, but we still lack verbiage 
in GL.2 to give a good handle on it.

-Lofton.

[1] http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/2002/07/qaframe-spec-0729.html
[2] 
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-smil20-20010807/smil20.html#smil-modules-smilModulesNSSMILHostLanguageConformance

Received on Friday, 2 August 2002 16:31:47 UTC