FW: New Technical Architecture Specification v 0.8.71

[Joseph Baran <joebaran@extol.com>]

To the QR team:

Duane posted the message below to TA and to the Steering Committee(!), but 
for some reason _not_ to the QR team, so I thought I would forward it to 
the QR team for your edification, especially since it includes a request to 
the QR team.

<jb>I have inserted my own comments within like this</jb>


----- Beginning of quoted message from Duane -----

From:	Duane Nickull [SMTP:duane@xmlglobal.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, September 12, 2000 6:37 PM
To:	ebXML-Architecture List; ebXML-StC
Subject:	New Technical Architecture Specification v 0.8.71

Hello all:

This is a progress report on the new TA version 0.8.71

The document has been posted to the TA Project team last week and was
discussed for submssion to the plenary for comments.  IT was approved in
concept however, it was understood that a newer version wouldbe
submitted reflecting some minor grammatical and structural changes.

<jb>
The previous version referred to above was posted last Tuesday (Sept 5 at 
around 18:30 UT) and was labeled "ebXML_TA_v1.8.6.doc..doc". (sic) The 
posting included the statements:

"There is no change log becuase
the document has been substantially reworked and reordered to the point
where the change log would be as long as the document itself.
We need to reach internal consensus on this ASAP.  *PLEASE* read it
thoroughly before the conference call on the 7th.
If we can agreee on it then,  we can send it  out to the rest of ebXML
for general comments."


The TA had a conference call on the 7th, which I did not participate in, so 
I have no idea in what sense it was "approved in concept".
</jb>


The changed version was released to the TA group on Monday with a note
saying it will be suibmitted to the Quality review team on Wednesday
(tomorrow) unless there are major objections.  Since there have been no
major objections,  it would appear that the document is bound for
submission tomorrow by 12:00 PST.

<jb>
There have been, in fact, NO other postings to the TA list at all since 
yesterday, but during the previous week there were some objections that at 
least I consider reasonably "major". I have no idea whether the authors of 
the comments consider them "major".

For example, how about this one:
</jb>

----- Beginning of quoted message from Chris-----

From:		Christopher Ferris [SMTP:chris.ferris@east.sun.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, September 05, 2000 3:46 PM
To:	ebXML-Architecture List
Subject:	Re: New Tech Arch Document

Is this an architecture document or yet another requirements
document?

I would suggest a perusal of the miriad "definitions" of the
term. The first two are quite useful.

	http://www.sei.cmu.edu/architecture/definitions.html

The Technical Architecture should be descriptive, in a general
sense of the components of the system and their interactions
or interface points.

We already have a Requirements document. What we need (desperately)
is an architecture which describes each of the high-level components,
how each of these components fit/work together to form the whole and
which describes the principals by which all components will be designed.
It should NOT get into the nitty gritty details of the design of the
component which by rights should remain the perview of the respective
project teams.

In my mind, this goes too far in prescribing the detailed set of
functionality of the various components (most notably the RegRep)
and does not go far enough in describing how the system's various
components work in concert to deliver the ebXML vision.

Cheers,

Chris
------- end of quoted message from Chris ---------------
<jb>
That was followed shortly by this one:
</jb>
----- Beginning of quoted message from David -----

From:	David RR Webber [SMTP:Gnosis_@compuserve.com]
Sent:	Tuesday, September 05, 2000 5:52 PM
To:	Duane Nickull
Cc:	ebXML-Architecture List
Subject:	re: New Tech Arch Document

Message text written by Duane Nickull
>
If we can agreee on it then,  we can send it  out to the rest of ebXML
for general comments.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Duane,

I agree with Chris' comments - especially vis the RegRep section.

I'd like to see that handled separately so that RegRep can work
that - before a war breaks out here ; -)

It's good though that you are prepared to try new approaches here
and invest all the time in grappling with the tough issues instead
of trying to gloss over them.

We have to nail this exactly right - otherwise it will forever haunt
us.

Thanks, DW.

------- end of quoted message from David ---------------
<jb>

To Duane's credit, he did respond in some detail to these objections, but 
his response basically said that he disagreed with Chris's interpretation. 
This is getting rather more long (and more deeply nested!) than I 
anticipated, so I won't quote the whole thing here. For the full text, see 
this link:

http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml-architecture/200009/msg00011.html

As far as I could tell, no further changes were made as a result of these 
comments.

</jb>


We would request that the Quality Review team finish its' review no
later than 5 days from that date and the document be submitted to the
plenary pursuant to the specification submission procedure.

On a personal note,  it is my hope that this document is reasonably
sufficient and can be voted on by Tokyo.

Duane Nickull

------- end of quoted message from Duane ---------------

<jb>
My fear is that the long-standing complaint about this document  - that it 
is fundamentally not an Architecture document - (as stated quite clearly by 
Chris above) has apparently still not been addressed.
</jb>

Joe Baran