Hi Asgeir/all,
I think the excerpts from the guidelines match pretty well the suggestions I made. Thus, I see them as support for the points I was trying to make.
In addition, I am under the impression that we need to clearly distinguish between the following facets related to conformance:
1. defining conformance
2. checking/testing conformance
3. claiming conformance
OASIS requires us to define conformance.
Having tools (e.g. test suites) that help to check/test conformance usually is very valuable. I consider the interoperability test which are required in some context to be also valuable types of checks/tests.
Conformance claims which are not justified are risky.
Best regards,
Christian
Original Message-----
From: Asgeir Frimannsson [mailto:asgeirf@redhat.com]
Sent: Montag, 15. November 2010 23:44
To: xliff@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [xliff] Where we stand on conformance, and how to best resolve (RE: XLIFF TC Meeting 16 Nov 2010)
Hi all,
Perhaps a way of clarifying or bringing closer some of these approaches is to think of conformance in terms of 'conformance targets'.
From http://docs.oasis-open.org/templates/TCHandbook/ConformanceGuidelines.html#_Toc170119661 :
Conformance Target – an artifact such as a protocol, document, platform, process or service, which is the subject of Conformance Clauses and Normative Statements. There may be several Conformance Targets defined within a specification, and these targets may be diverse so as to reflect different aspects of a specification. For example, a protocol message and a protocol engine may be different targets.
Say we define two targets, 'Document Conformance' and the more fuzzy 'Application Conformance'. Document conformance is very much in line with approach (1) below, and I do believe most of us agree on the scope for document conformance (i.e. valid according to schema).
About Application conformance, imagine a specification where we in the body of the specification describe using conformance keywords (e.g. SHOULD, MAY, MUST) the processing expectations, for instance:
"Applications that manipulate the