EARL conformance

Dear ERT WG,

As per our teleconference meeting last week, here is a more in-depth 
description of the conformance issue and the solution proposed. Please 
review this carefully and feel free to respond with any comments and 
questions before next weeks' call, where I hope we can make a decision.


# Issue

In one way, EARL provides a vocabulary of *semantic* terms that can (and 
should) be used in many different ways. Like we use terms from FOAF, 
Dublin Core, and potential DOAP vocabularies, we also want to promote 
reuse of EARL terms in different contexts. For those people, the 
conformance section does not make sense as currently written.

On the other hand, we want to continue to define a *syntax* for tool 
developers to exchange evaluation data. That is, a particular way of 
using the EARL terms so that an EARL producer and EARL consumer can 
exchange a well defined EARL report. We have definitions for these 
already, but they are somewhat mixed with the vocabulary definition.


# Proposal

Move the conformance sections from their current location to the EARL 
1.0 Guide document, but keep a cross-reference that is clearly focused 
to tool developers. This way the current specs become pure vocabulary 
definitions, and the EARL 1.0 Guide becomes a more relevant source for 
tool developers. This involves minimal changes yet several benefits.


Regards,
   Shadi

-- 
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/ |
   WAI International Program Office Activity Lead   |
  W3C Evaluation & Repair Tools Working Group Chair |

Received on Monday, 28 March 2011 10:41:41 UTC