Suggestion for a basis for subset profile conformance clauses

[Stephen D Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

Suggestion for a basis for subset profile conformance clauses

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In the UBL 1.0 Small Business Subset were clauses which

I found later to be very difficult to test precisely and this

might make conformance testing�and conformance claims

problematic.�The�introduction of conformance clauses in

recent�standard�specifications is to aid interoperability and

promote adoption through the clarification of what it means

for an implementation to conform to a standard specification.

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To promote adoption of subsets for the OASIS Universal

Business Language�it is important to include a conformance

clause of set of clauses and I would suggest that a subset

conformance clause should target more than just the UBL

documents (Invoice, Order, etc) themselves but also there

should be a conformance clause for a sending system, one

for a receiving system instead of or in addition to the clause

for conformance of the documents themselves. I would like

to suggest as a basis for the clause for the conformance

target of sending system conformance to a set of statements

which amount to the sending system being able to send a

certain set of BIEs in a given document, as defined by the

subset schema for that document. I would suggest that a

basis for a clause for the target of a receiving system would�

be a conformance clause requiring that the system MUST

NOT reject a document merely because of the presence in

it of any of the BIEs as defined by the subset schema (or

list of BIEs, e.g. given as a set of XPath expressions).

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As a simplistic example,�if a subset contains BIEs X,Y,Z of

which�Y and Z are mandatory and X is optional, there could

be a set of specification requirements to the effect that the

sender system MUST be able to send all�BIEs X, Y and Z

in sending that particular document (even though only Y

and Z are mandatory in any given document of that type).

A�conformance clause for the target of the sending system

would mandate these particular statements�as necessary

for the conformance of that system. A set of�statements that

target the receiving system would require that the system

MUST NOT reject�a document of that type merely because

it contains BIE X or Y or Z.�A conformance clause for the

receiving system would make the�statements mandatory

for�conformance by�such a system. There would be a set of�

statements�for�each conformance target that the documents

of that type MUST contain BIEs Y and Z because these are

mandatory.

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Such conformance clauses and this focus on testability may

help to promote adoption of any given subset and contribute

to�successful adoption and interoperable�implementations.

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Best regards

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Stephen D Green