IVOA Document Standards RFC V1.2

[Robert Hanisch]

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Standards and Processes, I have
posted responses to the comments that came in during the recent RFC.  (And I
apologize that these responses were not posted in a more timely manner!)
Please see the RFC page for details.

http://www.ivoa.net/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/IVOA/DocStdRFC2

In order to make sure that there is broad review and understanding of this
document, as it is the basis for all document promotion processes in the
IVOA, I am posting this overview to the stdproc and interop distribution
lists.  Detailed discussion is best carried out on the stdproc list, but
that list has not been used much for a few years.  Further comments can also
be posted on the RFC page above.

Several comments on the RFC were posted regarding the need for interoperable
implementations and validators.  The Committee agrees that some
strengthening of the language in the document on this matter is warranted.
In particular, item 4 concerning the promotion from Working Draft to
Proposed Recommendation currently reads:

"4.     Each feature of the Working Draft has been implemented. Preferably,
the Working Group should be able to demonstrate two interoperable
implementations of each feature, and validation tools should be available.
If the chair of the Working Group believes that broader review is critical,
the chair may advance the document to Proposed Recommendation even without
adequate implementation experience.  In this case, the document status
section should indicate why the chair promoted the document directly to
Proposed Recommendation.  A report describing the implementations or any
associated validation tools may be published as a Note, or may be documented
as part of the Request for Comments (see below)."

Several people argued that having at least two interoperable implementations
and at least one validator service should be mandatory.  As noted in the RFC
response, however, the Committee feels that making software implementations
mandatory is beyond the scope of the IVOA.  One might argue that if one or
more VO projects invests the efforts into developing the standard itself, it
follows that they would put effort into implementations and validators.  But
this could put a lot of pressure on schedule and resources of individual
projects, and could lead to major delays in the promotion process.

I think we can remove the "Preferably" language above, which seems very
soft, and make the text a SHOULD in the canonical sense.  Similarly the
"may" in the last sentence can become SHOULD.

If we are to embrace the idea that implementations and validators are to
become mandatory, it would be important to hear from the project managers as
to whether or not they are willing to support this requirement.  Speaking as
project manager of NVO I would have some reticence, especially now when we
have no resources to follow through.

Please follow up with comments to stdproc at ivoa.net, and if you wish to
participate in this discussion make sure you are on that list.

thanks,
Bob