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5.1.9 Implementation Flexibility
Implementation flexibility allows different technologies, products, architectures, and deployment approaches to satisfy the normative requirements of the proposed specification.
Requirements
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GPR-015 — Multiple Conforming Implementation Approaches: The proposed specification SHALL permit multiple implementation approaches capable of satisfying its normative requirements
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GPR-016 — Avoidance of Normative Implementation Descriptions: The Submission SHOULD NOT include implementation-specific descriptions as normative specification content
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GPR-017 — Minimal Interoperability Constraints: The proposed specification SHALL NOT constrain implementations beyond what is necessary to support required Interoperability
Related Requirements
These general implementation-flexibility requirements complement the following SIP-RA-specific requirements:
| Requirement | Relationship |
|---|---|
| SIP-001 — Platform-Independent Reference Architecture | Requires the proposed Reference Architecture to remain platform independent |
| SIP-029 — Implementation and Deployment Independence | Excludes prescribed implementation technologies, deployment topologies, and System architectures |
| SIP-030 — Tool and Technology Neutrality | Prevents conformance from requiring a particular modeling language, transport framework, or vendor tooling environment |
| SIP-037 — Technology-Neutral Integration Points | Requires integration points to remain independent of specific transport, exchange, and modeling standards |
| SIP-041 — Modeling and Tooling Conformance Neutrality | Prevents implementation conformance from depending on modeling languages, interchange formats, or vendor tools |
Notes for Editors
GPR-015 and GPR-017 are mandatory because they use SHALL or SHALL NOT.
GPR-016 is recommended because it uses SHOULD NOT.
GPR-016 does not prohibit informative implementation examples. Such examples should be clearly identified as nonnormative and should not be presented as the only permitted implementation approach.
GPR-017 permits constraints needed to support required Interoperability. Each such constraint should be traceable to an identified Interoperability need.
After the Annex C records are created and reviewed, replace each locally maintained Statement with a transclusion of its authoritative Statement.
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