- From: Alex Rousskov <rousskov@measurement-factory.com>
- Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 09:33:19 -0600 (MDT)
- To: Lofton Henderson <lofton@rockynet.com>
- cc: Art.Barstow@nokia.com, <www-qa@w3.org>
On Fri, 9 Aug 2002, Lofton Henderson wrote: > I rarely use "compliance" or "compliant", for a couple of reasons. > First, in my experience, it has been abused so much in marketing > claims and hype that I have a bias against it. Second, I'm not sure > what its definition is. I agree that marketing abused compliance more than conformance, but doubt that we can avoid using all terms abused by marketing. FWIW, I can quote the definition of compliance from HTTP spec: implements. An implementation that satisfies all the MUST or REQUIRED level and all the SHOULD level requirements for its protocols is said to be "unconditionally compliant"; one that satisfies all the MUST level requirements but not all the SHOULD level requirements for its protocols is said to be "conditionally compliant." I suspect that the definition of compliance (or conformance) would differ from one spec to another. IMO, compliance and conformance are synonyms: compliance, noun Date: 1647 1b: conformity in fulfilling official requirements conformance, noun Date: 1606 see CONFORMITY conformity, noun Date: 15th century 2: an act or instance of conforming Personally, I use compliance because more people are likely to know this term and because it is easier to spell. It also starts with "comp" which makes it related to computers :-). I have already suggested adding compliance to the Glossary (as a interchangeable synonym to conformance). If compliance is not added, there should be a note somewhere explaining why QAWG wants to avoid that commonly used term. Otherwise, the same question will be asked over and over again. Thanks, Alex. -- | HTTP performance - Web Polygraph benchmark www.measurement-factory.com | HTTP compliance+ - Co-Advisor test suite | all of the above - PolyBox appliance
Received on Friday, 9 August 2002 11:33:31 UTC