Issue 36: Clarify nature of conformance

Requirement 301a in [1] states:

"The XMLP specification must clearly identify conformance requirements 
in a way that enables the conformance of an implementation of the 
specification to be tested"

Issue 36 [2] contains a proposal that the working group will make
available a document that specifies conformance requirements.

The draft SOAP 1.2 testable assertions document available at [3]
makes the statement that 

"It is incorrect to claim to be compliant with the SOAP Version 1.2 
specification by passing successfully all the tests provided in this 
test suite. An implementation which would pass all the tests below may 
claim to be compliant with the test suite dated $Date: 2002/03/12
14:23:17 $."

This (rather odd) syntax stands as the current conformance statement.
Since
the test suite is still in draft form, this statement may be considered
to
be prototypical and will be more accurately stated when the test suite
is
finalized. The proposed final form of the conformance statement is:

"A SOAP 1.2 implementation that passes all of the tests specified in
this 
document may claim to conform to the SOAP 1.2 Test Suite (insert version
number)."

The value of conformance is its role as a guarantee of basic protocol 
interoperability. If SOAP 1.2 implementations that pass the test suite
are not compliant, then the test suite (and maybe the specification)
needs to be revisited.

 regards
   Oisin

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlp-reqs/
[2] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/xmlp-issues.html#x36
[3] http://www.w3.org/2000/xp/Group/2/03/11/soap-1.2-conformance.html

Received on Wednesday, 13 March 2002 14:50:10 UTC