Re: GL3 vs. DoV (Was: Plan/proposal for DoV group)

At 10:39 AM 4/20/2003 -0400, david_marston@us.ibm.com wrote:

>LR>Why is the Conformance Policy a DoV?  It is a consequence of the
>LR>other DoVs...
>
>It's a DoV as the result of a torturous evolution. If I am recalling
>the history correctly, it incorporates variability in the sense that
>minimum requirements (something *all* products in a particular class
>must implement) and strict conformance (*all* products in a class
>must be functionally the same) were policies that may or may not apply
>in a particular spec, or only to some classes of product.


I don't understand this.  DOVs evolved from the concept of variability oif 
implementations of a spec not variability of different specs 
themselves.  Variability of specs does not affect interoperability since 
all implementations of that spec are consistent.

As far as applying to only some classes of products, I don't believe this 
is true.  Strict conformance clearly applies to all classes of 
products.   I can see the argument for minimum requirements but I think 
we're overdoing the point here.

>If the overall policy is seen as the culmination of decisions about
>the various DoV (plus scope, which is GL 1), then LR's question can
>be refined to: could the checkpoints of GL 3 plausibly be moved to
>GL 10? (If so, GL 10 is no longer just a how-to-write-specs GL.) If
>not, do they need their own GL, or can they be put somewhere else?
>.................David Marston