Exit Criteria (CR/PR) Interoperability report

Often, some people in charge of the interoperability table (Exit 
Criteria) for a specific specification come to me because they are 
afraid to not be able to pass to PR. They want to be sure to have the 
right information in their documents.

In fact, there are no strict rules.

Just  for the record, a document is going through
	WD -> Last Call WD -> CR -> PR -> Rec

If we look at the Process Document
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/tr.html#RecsPR

[NotaBene: First surprising thing, there's no mention of Exit 
Criteria in the whole process document, but Entrance Criteria. 
Something to fix?]

in PR,
------------------------
Entrance criteria. Before advancing a technical report to Proposed 
Recommendation, the Director must be satisfied that:

[...]

4. each feature of the technical report has been implemented. 
Preferably, the Working Group should be able to demonstrate two 
interoperable implementations of each feature. If the Director 
believes that immediate Advisory Committee review is critical to the 
success of a technical report, the Director may advance the technical 
report to Proposed Recommendation even without adequate 
implementation experience. In this case, the technical report status 
section should indicate why the Director advanced the technical 
report directly to Proposed Recommendation;
-------------------------


In CR,
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process-20010719/tr.html#RecsCR

------------------
The Working Group is not required to show that a technical report has 
two independent and interoperable implementations as part of a 
request to advance to Candidate Recommendation. However, the Working 
Group is encouraged to include a report of present and expected 
implementation as part of the request.
-------------------


in QA Framework document
http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/2002/framework-20020201/qaframe-ops.html


"Although not explicitly stated, the W3C Process Document supports 
the development of conformance test materials."

and

"In an effort to meet these suggestions and address the 
implementation requirements of the Process Document, some Working 
Groups have included the development of conformance materials as part 
of their CR-exit and PR-entrance criteria."

and

"Checkpoint 1.2. In the Working Group charter, specify completion and 
publication of test materials to be a criterion for CR-exit and 
PR-entrance. [Priority 2]"

*************************

Saying all of that, there's no clear way, for people to know what 
they should/must do to have a clear and not ambiguous report. How to 
present their data, How to explain why it fails, how to deal with 
wrong tests etc.

Maybe we need a new checkpoint. Because it's one of the formal thing 
written in the Process document but not yet clearly explained. :)

-- 
Karl Dubost / W3C - Conformance Manager
           http://www.w3.org/QA/

      --- Be Strict To Be Cool! ---

Received on Monday, 25 February 2002 09:21:59 UTC