Re: oddities in our Conformance Model

You raise a good point.  I don't remember the history of why we took GPs 
out of the conformance model - probably due to some comment and the need to 
simplify.  I agree that GPs can be 'normative, optional'  and would agree 
with the approach of having plain Conforming == does all Rqts.  I think 
introducing 2 levels of conformance (e.g., conformance and conformance 
plus) at this time is not a good idea.

--lynne



At 06:06 PM 4/20/2005 +0200, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux wrote:
>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 Thursday, 21 April 2005 00:02:11 UTC