[BYTEIO-WG] ByteIO Interop Document

[Michel Drescher]

Hi Stephen,

thanks for sharing your thoughts! They actually prove that we are on the
right track with the interop document, I think.

As we are heavily preparing for Public Comment period for the
Interoperability Specification, may I invite the Interop BoF people to
read the document and give comments?

If all goes well, the Interop document should be in Public Comment
period by end of October 2006.

Cheers,
Michel

Stephen M Pickles wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> I agree with you.
> 
> As I see it, the objective of your interoperability work is
> in order to validate your own specification, not to test the
> interoperability of specifications (and their implementations)
> on which you depend, such as WSRF. Thus, I would say that the
> following questions are in scope:
> 1) is the specification sufficiently clear and free of ambiguities
>    to allow the independent development of interoperable
>    implementations?
> 2) do the interoperability testing experiences highlight a need for
>    clarification, such as a profile of how dependent specifications
>    should or should not be used to achieve interoperability?
> 3) do the interoperability testing experiences expose a deficiency
>    in the spec itself which should be addressed by errata or
>    another revision?
> And, IMHO, the following can be ruled out of scope
> (bring them into scope at your peril):
> 1) proving that a given set of implementations do indeed interoperate
>    (the main business of OGF is standards, not implementations.)
> 2) testing the interoperability of dependent specifications.
> 3) testing the compliance of an implementation with your specification
> 4) testing the compliance of an implementation of a dependent
>    specification.
> (This is not to say that all these aren't important - one hopes that
> sooner or later all of these do get addressed. But the working
> group shouldn't have to take them all on.)
> 
> This is easy to say, but can be much harder to do. My advice,
> FWIW, is to be pragmatic - do what you reasonably can to achieve
> your objectives without opening too many cans of worms, and
> document the rationale behind key decisions along the way.
> 
> I'm cross-posting this to the interop-bof list, in the hope that
> others will have constructive comments or relevant experience to
> share.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Stephen


-- 
Michel <dot> Drescher <at> uk <dot> fujitsu <dot> com
Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe
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