Comments on AS4 Profile of ebMS V3 Version 1.0 Public Review Draft01

I'm offering these comments on your specification as a member of the
OASIS Technical Advisory Board.

Comment numbers in square brackets. References are to the PDF.

[1] Editorial

This document needs a better abstract. The abstract to  Conformance
Profiles Version 1.0 was better (though it was confusing on the
"non-normative" nature of the profiles).

I know I should have looked up all of the references, but they don't
occur until after the "Introduction" that tells me that "AS4...is
intended to achieve the same functionality as AS2...." So my first
thought was "what the heck is AS4? and what's AS2?". This needs to
introduce the terms as well as the document. Please add a paragraph
with (if necessary) forward references.

Line 186 the font for "[GZIP]" differs from the rest.

Section 1.2 The links are treated differently - see e.g. line 193 and
compare typographically to 187.

Line 224: Would it kill too much toner to say "The AS4 Conformance
Profile..."?

Line 269ff: Text has been turned into header or huge font.

Line 315:  "light client PROFILE"? this is a profile, so the word
should be after "Client".

Lines 363-269 The font looks like it went crazy here.

I am puzzled that the editorial look-and-feel is very different between
this and Conformance Profiles Version 1.0. Perhaps they could be better
aligned, or if there's a convention that I'm missing, create a
Typographical Conventions section is 1. (see SCA Assembly for one
example, though an imperfect one).

[2] Technical

Section 4

The Usage Rules are very different typographically from the "Features
set" in the other profile document I comment on, and different still
from the Processing mode parameters (e.g.) on 257ff. The typography
confuses the technical content; please correct, and try to use a
consistent style across all of the TC's profiles. These share my
comments elsewhere about the RFC2119 keywords and use, though you do a
better job in this document.

[3] Technical

Is this one normative or not? It apparently is, but there's no
conformance section as required by OASIS. Perhaps the mixed tables are
intended as the conformance information, but there still needs to be a
simple set of conformance clauses.

Thinking more about Conformance Profiles version 1.0, I'm concerned
that without rationale that set of profiles is non-normative, and this
one is? Why the difference? This should be clear in both documents, and
conformance sections included.

Thanks!

bill cox

-- 

William Cox

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