At the last f2f meeting the WS-Policy WG agreed to add an attribute called 'ignorable' to the WS-Policy assertion syntax.  We think this is a step in the right direction.  The WG, however, blunted the effect of this change by allowing the ignorable attribute to be ignored during policy intersection by allowing two intersection modes one of which honors the ignorable attribute and the other which ignores it.

We argue this creates a problem as the parties attempting to agree on a policy alternative may use different forms of the intersection algorithm and come up with different solutions.  A standard that allows such variation is not very useful.

We suggest that the policy intersection algorithm be changed so that assertions marked ignorable are always ignored.