AI-20050131-1

2.2 Requirement A

The XML Core WG objected to 2.2 Requirement A as being “unclear and
potentially dangerous.” They state that defining classes of products 
will
be unclear and lead to “excluding some products for which the spec 
should
apply.” They further comment, “We don’t believe there are (or could
be) clear definitions of distinct classes, and we are concerned that any
attempt to list classes affected by a spec might end up excluding some
products for which the spec should apply.”

The Glossary currently defines “Class of Products” as the “generic
name for the group of products or services that would implement, for the
same purpose, the specification, (i.e., target of the specification). A
specification may identify several classes of products.”

A key XML Core WG demand appears to be “any product should be evaluated
against the spec to determine if the spec applies to it.” So it appears
they are saying no one can create a class of products without first 
testing
all products against the spec to see if it belongs. Clearly this would 
be
impractical for the spec author.

They may be reading much more into the definition of the term “class”
than was intended by the QA WG. Many programming disciplines have formal
definitions of classes. My reading of the definition of “Class of
Products” in the glossary strikes me as a non-technical (i.e., informal)
use of the term class.

So their objection might be satisfied by redefining “Class of Products”
as the “generic name for the group of products or services to which it 
has
been determined the specification applies, (i.e., target of the
specification). A specification may identify several classes of 
products.”

This revised definition may be a difference without any distinction but 
it
does include key phrases from their definition.

If this change does not satisfy them, we should consider replacing 
“Class
of Products” with a new term that does not use the word class.


4.4 Requirement B

The XML Core WG objects to 4.4 Requirement B being mandatory as long as 
it
includes the words “by each class of product”. If the redefinition of
“Class of Products” above is not sufficient for the XML Core WG, I
believe that this objection could then be satisfied with the following 
minor
changes:

In the title change “Define how deprecated feature is handled by each
class of product.” to “Define how deprecated feature is handled.”

In the subsection “Techniques” change item #1 from “Consider the
effect of deprecation on all classes of products that implement the
specification (e.g., authoring tools, converter, user agents).” to
“Consider the effect of deprecation on all products that implement the
specification (e.g., authoring tools, converter, user agents).”

Received on Monday, 7 February 2005 13:40:06 UTC