[www-qa] Re: input document for f2f

A few quick reactions:
People could take away different interpretations depending on what they
think you mean by "interoperability" -- is it the ability to plug in any
vendor's implementation of a single Rec within a possibly proprietary
software framework, or is it the ability to plug together different
vendors' implementations of W3C Recs A and B?

In part 3.1, you should mention use of the test suite by a third-party
test lab, which may be a (real or virtual) magazine doing testing for
publication, or it could be an advisory service acting on behalf of
paying clients. Also say something to position the idea of testing across
multiple Recommendations, possibly from multiple WGs. This is needed for
certain kinds of software but may be wishful at this time, so I'd say
that the notion should be acknowledged but positioned as a long-range
objective. Some of the goals in 1.1 around common test tools would be
more compelling if they could be used to test the interoperation of
multiple Recs.

The mention of Accessibility and Internationalization (A&I) in 3.3.10
raises an interesting coordination issue. Then in 3.4, another aspect of
coordination arises, which actually interacts: do the A&I groups work
with QA as well as the Rec-track WG, does QA try to represent A&I
interests, does QA join the list (that A&I are currently on) of groups
that review the work of Rec-track WGs, or is there some other
relationship? Also, who gets to have their say about the Requirements
Document of a Rec-track WG? While answering these questions, we must not
foster the thought that quality is applied by an external force after
the WG creates a draft or CR; the WG itself is responsible for doing
their work under the guidance of this Framework and other statements
about quality.

To answer your question in Chapter 5, I think there *would* be an
expectation resembling Conformance, but it probably emerges better in
the documentation standards. For example, the Rec may be required to
present every testable assertion in a certain format. All I can see
for conformance to the Framework is the identification of people who
will perform the various tasks that the Framework requires to be
performed.
.................David Marston

Received on Wednesday, 7 November 2001 16:45:02 UTC