RE: Extensibility and Uniformity; defining "error" behavior

There is the procedural issue:

The W3C process document uses the word "interoperable" in several places, e.g., http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/tr.html contains 

"... a technical report has two independent and interoperable implementations..."

and

"...demonstrate two interoperable implementations of each feature "

Working groups should not redefine words (such as "interoperable" and "feature") from the documents that they reference or that control their advancement, no matter how reasonable their redefinitions might sound.

Larry



-----Original Message-----
From: www-tag-request@w3.org [mailto:www-tag-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 7:10 AM
To: www-tag@w3.org
Subject: Re: Extensibility and Uniformity; defining "error" behavior


"The CSS Working Group defined 'interoperability' as the ability to
pass certain tests with a well defined result. The CSS 2.1 definition
of "interoperability" is closely tight to the needs of CSS 2.1 and
serves this purpose well. I do not think that generalizing it is
appropriate. I also do not think that it is worth the effort to enter
the renaming game and relabel 'interoperability' to 'conformance'
or 'foo'."

I don't see it as playing games to take issue with what one sees as misuse 
of a term. (And I don't suggest relabeling "interoperability" to 
"conformance". And certainly not to "foo".)

It isn't my intent to prolonge this debate, I simply would like to register 
my dissent over defining interoperability as "the ability to pass certain 
tests with a well defined result".  "Interoperability"  is an important and 
well-understood word in standards, and mis-using it will cause confusion.

Without defining interoperability, I expect you would agree that simple 
word-component analysis would immediately lead one first to deduce that it 
means "the ability to interoperate", reducing the task to defining 
"interoperate".   And "interoperate" is "inter" + "operarate".  Nevermind 
defining "operate";  "inter" implies multiple entities. What are the 
multiple entities involved in the CSS  definition?

If instead you had defined *operability*    (rather than "interoperability) 
as "the ability to
pass certain tests with a well defined result".  I would have no problem.

--Ray

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rigo Wenning" <rigo@w3.org>
To: "Anne van Kesteren" <annevk@opera.com>
Cc: "Larry Masinter" <masinter@adobe.com>; "Ian Hickson" <ian@hixie.ch>; 
<www-tag@w3.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 3:19 AM
Subject: Re: Extensibility and Uniformity; defining "error" behavior

Received on Tuesday, 6 January 2009 16:15:26 UTC