- From: <richard.t.kennedy@boeing.com>
- Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 06:42:36 +0000
- To: www-qa-wg@w3.org
2.2 Requirement A The XML Core WG objected to 2.2 Requirement A as being “unclear and potentially dangerous.” They state that defining classes of products will be unclear and lead to “excluding some products for which the spec should apply.” They further comment, “We don’t believe there are (or could be) clear definitions of distinct classes, and we are concerned that any attempt to list classes affected by a spec might end up excluding some products for which the spec should apply.” The Glossary currently defines “Class of Products” as the “generic name for the group of products or services that would implement, for the same purpose, the specification, (i.e., target of the specification). A specification may identify several classes of products.” A key XML Core WG demand appears to be “any product should be evaluated against the spec to determine if the spec applies to it.” So it appears they are saying no one can create a class of products without first testing all products against the spec to see if it belongs. Clearly this would be impractical for the spec author. They may be reading much more into the definition of the term “class” than was intended by the QA WG. Many programming disciplines have formal definitions of classes. My reading of the definition of “Class of Products” in the glossary strikes me as a non-technical (i.e., informal) use of the term class. So their objection might be satisfied by redefining “Class of Products” as the “generic name for the group of products or services to which it has been determined the specification applies, (i.e., target of the specification). A specification may identify several classes of products.” This revised definition may be a difference without any distinction but it does include key phrases from their definition. If this change does not satisfy them, we should consider replacing “Class of Products” with a new term that does not use the word class. 4.4 Requirement B The XML Core WG objects to 4.4 Requirement B being mandatory as long as it includes the words “by each class of product”. If the redefinition of “Class of Products” above is not sufficient for the XML Core WG, I believe that this objection could then be satisfied with the following minor changes: In the title change “Define how deprecated feature is handled by each class of product.” to “Define how deprecated feature is handled.” In the subsection “Techniques” change item #1 from “Consider the effect of deprecation on all classes of products that implement the specification (e.g., authoring tools, converter, user agents).” to “Consider the effect of deprecation on all products that implement the specification (e.g., authoring tools, converter, user agents).”
Received on Monday, 7 February 2005 13:40:06 UTC