[ogsa-wg] Profile documents

[Dave Berry]

Dave,

I was slightly surprised at a couple of points in your proposed
document.  I'd be curious to understand the thinking behind them.

The most surprising was to allow evolving standards as part of a
published recommmendation.  Doesn't this undermine the idea of a profile
as being a stable entity that implementations can build to with
confidence that it won't change underneath them?

Related to this was the removal of the "stable" term.  If I understand
the document correctly, an "evolving" spec only has to exist in a
standards body; it doesn't necessarily have to be submitted to that
body.  In GGF terms, it doesn't have to be submitted as a proposed
recommendation.  Have I got that right?  Or are you using "evolving"
where previously we used "stable", and "draft" where we previously used
"evolving"?

I was also surprised that there are no constraints at all on the specs
that can be included in an Informational Profile.  I guess that makes
sense.  I was slightly surprised that no-one challenged this, but I
suppose most people are interested in the recommendation profiles.

I definitely want to allow the DAIS spec in the first data profile.
This is partly the chicken and egg question; if a spec isn't in an OGSA
profile, people will be less inclined to implement it.  This is
particularly applicable to the DAIS spec, because we want people to
implement it as part of their DBMS systems, not as a standalone
executable.  (This is to avoid unnecessary copying of data in the
implementations).

Best wishes,

Dave Berry
Research Manager, National e-Science Centre
15 South College St., Edinburgh
Tel: +44 131 6514039