Re: profiles/modules/levels

>In my view, all of GL9 (extensions) is about functional extensions to the 
>technology.  It is not about ways in which a spec's conformance model (or 
>conformance policy), per se, might exceed and extend SpecGL's concepts.  A 
>new DoV, or a generic catch-all DoV, is about the latter.


I strongly disagree.  From SpecGL " An extension to a specification is a 
mechanism to incorporate functionality beyond what is defined in a 
specification."  You're interpreting "functionality" too narrowly. The 
intent is to allow implementations to do things above and beyond the 
requirements in the standard.  We're now talking about extending SpecGL in 
an implementation of it.  Our "functionality" are all the requirements in 
SpecGL (everything with a conformance requirement in the form of 
"MUST".  Implementations of SpecGL are specifications and when these 
specifications include additional concepts that were not enumerated in 
SpecGL, that's clearly an extension.


****************************************************************
Mark Skall
Chief, Software Diagnostics and Conformance Testing Division
Information Technology Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8970
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8970

Voice: 301-975-3262
Fax:   301-590-9174
Email: skall@nist.gov
****************************************************************

Received on Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:08:22 UTC