- From: Dominique Hazaël-Massieux <dom@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 18:06:24 +0200
- To: Lofton Henderson <lofton@rockynet.com>
- Cc: www-qa-wg@w3.org
- Message-Id: <1114013184.24580.129.camel@stratustier>
Le mercredi 20 avril 2005 à 09:48 -0600, Lofton Henderson a écrit : > We say that Requirements are normative, and everything else including > Good Practices is informative. I find that odd. In my view, GPs are > normative but optional, like a SHOULD. The fact that GPs appear in > our ICS, and the fact that the language and wording of GPs is exactly > identical to that used in Rqts -- these reinforce the > normative/optional view. Very good point, indeed. > The question is complicated by the fact that we don't have a > definition of normative, neither in SpecGL nor in the "comprehensive > QA Glossary". We have to go back 18 months [2] to find a definition > of normative (at least one which is the result of QAWG deliberation > and consensus): > > > normative text > > text in a specification which is prescriptive or contains > > conformance requirements. > > [2] > http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/CR-qaframe-spec-20031110/definitions#definitions (I suggest we don't forget to deal with that separate issue: should we define normative, and if so with what definition?) > IMO, the difficulty arises because we want a simple conformance model > with a single conformance designation: "Conforming" (satisfies all > Rqts). The problem could be solved by some additional designation > such as "Conforming PLUS", but we avoided such complication (rightly, > I believe). It could also be solved by classifying the GPs as > "normative, optional", saying that it's better than plain Conforming > to satisfy as many GPs as possible, but not defining any designation > other than "Conforming" ( == "does all Rqts"). I like the latter approach; of course we need to find the right wording for it... Would you have a draft proposal? > We should eat our own dogfood -- clear definitions and clear > conformance model. In my view, we don't do that now. I'm not > suggesting that we should fundamentally alter what it means to be > SpecGL-Conforming, but that we ought to clean up how it's structured > and presented. Agreed. Dom -- Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/ W3C/ERCIM mailto:dom@w3.org
Received on Wednesday, 20 April 2005 16:06:37 UTC