Re: Conformance claims, Priorities

On Fri, 20 Sep 2002, Lofton Henderson wrote:

> > > > This is good but probably impractical. Even W3C "valid *ML" images do
> > > > not (and cannot) satisfy this verbose format.
>
> What do you mean by "'valid *ML' images" (esp. the word "images")?

http://validator.w3.org/images/vxhtml10

(for example)

> In fact, those details seem pretty routine and sensible for a
> software component (the reader of a claim really ought to be able to
> tell if it is V1.2 that passed the conformance test 3 years ago, and
> not the current v4.6, without having to do "20 questions" with some
> salesman).

In real life, vendors want to put a sticker on their boxes, ads, and
Web sites. There is not enough place on a small sticker for all the
information you are asking about.

Also, they do not want to update all marketing materials when new
version is released or a feature has been added. The sticker should be
"valid" for a long time.

I do agree that it would be nice to have all that info available
"in-place", but, in my experience, it is not practical. The most you
can get is a small ID assigned to a sticker and some database that
links the ID to detailed (and probably stale) information. I think UL
does that, and probably others.

> >Seems to me that SpecGL violates its own recommendation for reducing
> >variability by adding "optional" checkpoints with no practical value.
>
> Highly subjective and arguable, whether "important/desirable" and
> "beneficial/useful" -- the characterizations for P2 and P3 checkpoints --
> have "no practical value".

True. I was responding to the assertion that it is OK for a P3
checkpoint to have no practical value. Your "P3" definition is
apparently different from what Dominique(?) was using.

Alex.

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Received on Friday, 20 September 2002 17:09:44 UTC