Conformance Clause(s) should be clearly identified as such in Part 1,2,3

From Jacques Durand 
(TAB member):

 

[0] General 
Comment:

 

Overall the 
specification appears well structured, and quite well and carefully written. I 
wish the split into 3 parts was better explained however: I only have a clue of 
the existence of the "other" parts by reading the "related work" in 
the front page. Maybe the Introduction of Part 1 (section 1.1) could be more 
specific as what role Part 1 is playing in the complete specification, and 
briefly mention Part 2 and 3 and their relationship to Part 
1.

 

 

[1] Missing a formal 
"Conformance Clause" section in Part 1, + a better introduction of conformance 
targets.

 

As I started to 
review the specification, it appeared at first that a Conformance Clause(s) 
is missing

http://docs.oasis-open.org/templates/TCHandbook/ConformanceGuidelines.html

 

Appendix G1 in Part 
1 suggests that there should be several ("New conformance clauses and 
labels").

 

After a closer 
look, it appears that section 2 plays this role but without ever stating it 
clearly. So it is not obvious to the reader that Section 2 should be interpreted 
as the confformance clause section, defining the conditions to be met by 
implementations to formally claim conformance.

 

One option is to 
retitle Section 2 as the Conformance Clauses section, and in addition to provide 
a better (even if informal) definition of the conformance targets inside, 
independently from their conformance requirements.  

 

For example, 
currently Section 2.1.1 starts right away with "An OPenDocument document shall 
meet the following reqs..." without even telling me what is (even roughly) an 
OpenDocument document. 

And it keeps going 
right away by telling me "if it is a package, then..." and here again I don't 
know what is a package (only really defined in Part 3?)

 

Another approach is 
to keep Section 2 title as is, but modify content so that it only introduces and 
describes informally the various implementation types / conformance targets 
( documents, consumers, producers ...)

Then add at the end 
of the specification a Conformance Clauses section, that will contain most of 
the current content of section 2 (conformance conditions for each conformance 
target).

 

Note that if Part 3 
contains in turn a conformance clause for "packages", this clause should be 
referred by Part 1 clauses.

 

 

[2] Missing a formal 
"Conformance Clause" section in Part 2.

 

Same remarks as in 
[1], about Section 2 that should become the formal conf clause 
section.

Also again, the 
reader has no clue as to what is - even informally - the rationale for these 
various conformance targets: Small / Medium / Large group evaluators. These 
should be defined or at least briefly introduced separately from their 
conformance requirements.

 

 

[3] Missing a formal 
"Conformance Clause" section in Part 
3.

 

Same remarks as in 
[1], about Section 2 that should become the formal conf clause 
section.

Also as a reader I'd 
love to see an informal definition of what a "Package" is, what's the intent, 
and what is the rationale for package vs. extended package, independently from 
the detailed conformance requirements for 
these.