[Css-csts] Normative or informative references to the Guidelines?

[John Pietras]

CSTSWG colleagues ---

At the Noordwijk meeting, a question arose regarding whether the
Guidelines should be referenced normatively or informatively in CSTS
specifications that follow those Guidelines. I have not recorded in my
notes that any firm decision was made, but in my notes for the TD-CSTS
draft I have the comment "Clarify whether this has to be normative or
informative" attached to the statement "Table 3-1 identifies the
procedures of the Tracking Data CSTS. The rows of table 3-1 are defined
in ... [<reference number of the Guidelines]" in section 3.2 (Procedures
of the Tracking Data Cross Support Transfer Service).

 

I believe that this reference is normative, and therefore the Guidelines
citation should be in the normative references in section 1. My
reasoning is that one must read the Guidelines in order to interpret the
component procedures table of a CSTS specification; e.g, the difference
between "1..1" and "1..*" in the "Nb. of Instances" row, or the
relationship between the Version row and the Source row. In effect, this
reference is calling in the Guidelines to expand the shorthand notation
found in the table into specification statements (e.g., "1..1" is
translated into "One and only one instance of this procedure shall be
present in an instance of this CSTS". 

 

This is the interpretation that I have used in the most recent draft of
the Monitored Data CSTS, and I am currently updating the TD-CSTS book in
this way. 

 

I look forward to your comments on this topic.

 

Best regards,

John

 

John Pietras

GST, Inc. 

7855 Walker Drive, Suite 200

Greenbelt, MD 20770

240-542-1155

 

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