OSLC Requirements Management 2.0 Specification

2.0 Convergence draft This current draft is in convergence phase, gathering community feedback and review prior to entering finalization stages.

Introduction

This family of documents defines the Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration Requirements Management and Definition specification, also known as OSLC RM. These documents collectively define the OSLC RM 2.0 specification, which is part of the OSLC group of specifications. This specification supports key REST APIs for software Requirements Management systems. OSLC RM 2.0 takes an open, loosely coupled approach to specific lifecycle integration scenarios. The scenarios and this V2.0 specification were created by the OSLC RM Working Group. More information on the principles underlying OSLC and RM in particular can be found on the main OSLC site and the home page of the RM topic.

Terminology

Requirement Resource - Some statement of need.

Service Provider - an implementation of the OSLC Requirements Management specification.

Service Consumer - an implementation of a client which consume resource models provided by a service provider.

Notation and Conventions

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119. Domain name examples use RFC2606.

Base Requirements

Compliance

This specification is based on OSLC Core Specification? . OSLC RM consumers and service providers MUST be compliant with both the core specification and this RM specification, and SHOULD follow all the guidelines and recommendations in both these specifications.

The following table summarizes the requirements from OSLC Core Specification as well as some additional specific to RM. Note that this specification further restricts some of the requirements for OSLC Core Specification. See further sections in this specification or the OSLC Core Specification to get further details on each of these requirements.

Requirement	Level	Meaning
Unknown properties and content	MAY / MUST	OSLC services MAY ignore unknown content and OSLC clients MUST preserve unknown content
Resource Operations	MUST	OSLC service MUST support resource operations via standard HTTP operations
Resource Paging	MAY	OSLC services MAY provide paging for resources but only when specifically requested by client
Partial Resource Representations	MAY / MUST	OSLC services MUST support request for a subset of a resource's properties via the oslc.properties URL parameter retrieval via HTTP GET and MAY support via HTTP PUT
Partial Update	MAY	OSLC services MAY support partial update of resources using patch semantics
Service Provider Resources	MAY / MUST	OSLC service providers MAY provide a Service Provider Catalog and MUST provide a Service Provider resource
Creation Factories	MUST	OSLC service providers MUST provide creation factories to enable resource creation via HTTP POST
Query Capabilities	SHOULD	OSLC service providers SHOULD provide query capabilities to enable clients to query for resources
Query Syntax	MUST	OSLC query capabilities MUST support the OSLC Core Query Syntax and MAY use other query syntax
Delegated UI Dialogs	MUST	OSLC Services MUST offer delegated UI dialogs (creation and selections) specified via service provider resource
UI Preview	SHOULD	OSLC Services SHOULD offer UI previews for resources that may be referenced by other resources
HTTP Basic Authentication	MAY	OSLC Services MAY support Basic Auth and should do so only over HTTPS
OAuth Authentication	MAY	OSLC Services MAY support OAuth and can indicate the required OAuth URLs via the service provider resource
Error Responses	MAY	OSLC Services MAY provide error responses using Core defined error formats
RDF/XML Representations	MUST	OSLC services MUST provide an RDF/XML representation for HTTP GET, POST and PUT requests.
HTML Representations	SHOULD	OSLC services SHOULD provide HTML representations for HTTP GET requests

Specification Versioning

See OSLC Core Specification Versioning section? .

Service providers that support the resource formats and services in this specification MUST use HTTP response header of OSLC-Core-Version with a value of 2.0. Consumers MAY request formats and services defined in this document by providing a HTTP request header of OSLC-Core-Version with a value of 2.0. See section below on Version Compatibility with OSLC RM 1.0 Specifications.

Namespaces

In addition to the namespace URIs and namespace prefixes oslc, rdf, dcterms and foaf defined in the OSLC Core specification? , OSLC RM defines the namespace URI of http://open-services.net/ns/rm# with a namespace prefix of oslc_rm

This specification also uses these namespace prefix definitions:

• oslc_cm : http://open-services.net/ns/cm# (Reference: OSLC CM)
• oslc_qm : http://open-services.net/ns/qm# (Reference: OSLC QM)

Resource Formats

In addition to the requirements for OSLC Core Resource Formats section? , this section outlines further refinements and restrictions.

For HTTP GET requests on all OSLC RM and OSLC Core defined resource types,

• RM Providers MUST provide RDF/XML representations.
• RM Consumers requesting RDF/XML SHOULD be prepared for any valid RDF/XML document. RM.
• RM Providers SHOULD support an [X]HTML representation and a user interface (UI) preview as defined by UI Preview Guidance?

For HTTP PUT/POST request formats for RM resources:

• RM Providers MUST accept RDF/XML representations. RM Providers accepting RDF/XML SHOULD be prepared for any valid RDF/XML document.

For HTTP GET response formats for Query requests,

• RM Providers MUST provide RDF/XML representations.

Content Negotiation

OSLC Core Guidance clearly points to RDF representations (and specifically RDF/XML) as a convention that all OSLC Provider implementations minimally provide and accept. OSLC RM Provider implementations are strongly encouraged to adopt this convention and MAY offer other representation formats at their discretion.

RDF/XML Representation - identified by the application/rdf+xml content type. No additional guidance is given. The OSLC Core describes an algorithm for generating consistent formats that are used as examples only.

Authentication

See OSLC Core Authentication section? . OSLC RM puts no additional constraints on authentication.

Error Responses

See OSLC Core Error Responses section? . OSLC RM puts no additional constraints on error responses.

Pagination

OSLC RM service providers SHOULD support pagination of query results and MAY support pagination of a single resource's properties as defined by the OSLC Core Specification.

Requesting and Updating Properties

Requesting a Subset of Properties

A client MAY request a subset of a resource's properties as well as properties from a referenced resource. In order to support this behavior a service provider MUST support the oslc.properties and oslc.prefix URL parameter on a HTTP GET request on individual resource request or a collection of resources by query. If the oslc.properties parameter is omitted on the request, then all resource properties MUST be provided in the response.

Updating a Subset of Properties

A client MAY request that a subset of a resource's properties be updated by identifying those properties to be modified using the oslc.properties URL parameter on a HTTP PUT request.

If the parameter oslc.properties contains a valid resource property on the request that is not provided in the content, the server MUST set the resource's property to a null or empty value. If the parameter oslc.properties contains an invalid resource property, then a 409 Conflict MUST be returned.

Updating Multi-Valued Properties

For multi-valued properties that contain a large number of values, it may be difficult and inefficient to add or remove property values. OSLC RM Service Providers SHOULD provide support for a partial update of the multi-valued properties as defined by OSLC Core Partial Update? .

RM Resource Definitions

Property value types that are not defined in the following sections, are defined in OSLC Core - Defining OSLC Properties?

Resource Requirement

The Requirement resource may have the following set of properties. Requirement resource properties are not limited to the ones defined in this specification, service providers may provide additional properties. It is recommended that any additional properties exist in their own unique namespace and not use the namespaces defined in these specifications.

• Name: Requirement
• Type URI http://open-services.net/ns/rm#Requirement

Prefixed Name	Occurs	Read-only	Value-type	Representation	Range	Description
OSLC Core: Common Properties
dcterms:title	exactly-one	unspecified	XMLLiteral	n/a	n/a	Title (reference: Dublin Core) of the resource represented as rich text in XHTML content. SHOULD include only content that is valid inside an XHTML <span> element.
dcterms:description	zero-or-one	unspecified	XMLLiteral	n/a	n/a	Descriptive text (reference: Dublin Core) about resource represented as rich text in XHTML content. SHOULD include only content that is valid and suitable inside an XHTML <div> element.
dcterms:identifier	zero-or-one	True	String	n/a	n/a	An identifier for a resource. This identifier may be unique with a scope that is defined by the RM provider. Assigned by the service provider when a resource is created. Not intended for end-user display.
oslc:shortTitle	zero-or-one	unspecified	XMLLiteral	n/a	n/a	Short name identifying a resource, often used as an abbreviated identifier for presentation to end-users. SHOULD include only content that is valid inside an XHTML <span> element.
dcterms:subject	zero-or-many	False	String	n/a	n/a	Tag or keyword for a resource. Each occurrence of a dcterms:subject property denotes an additional tag for the resource.
dcterms:creator	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Either	foaf:Person	Creator of resource (reference: Dublin Core).
dcterms:contributor	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Either	foaf:Person	Contributor to resource (reference: Dublin Core).
dcterms:created	zero-or-one	True	DateTime	n/a	n/a	Timestamp of resource creation (reference: Dublin Core).
dcterms:modified	zero-or-one	True	DateTime	n/a	n/a	Timestamp last latest resource modification (reference: Dublin Core).
rdf:type	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Reference	n/a	The resource type URIs.
oslc:serviceProvider	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Reference	oslc:ServiceProvider	The scope of a resource is a URI for the resource's OSLC Service Provider.
oslc:instanceShape	zero-or-one	unspecified	Resource	Reference	oslc:ResourceShape	Resource Shape that provides hints as to resource property value-types and allowed values.
oslc:discussion	zero-or-one	unspecified	Resource	Reference	oslc:Discussion	A sequence of notes and discussions about this requirement.
Prefixed Name	Occurs	Read-only	Value-type	Represen-tation	Range	Description
Relationship properties: This grouping of properties are used to identify relationships between resources managed by other OSLC Service Providers
oslc_rm:elaboratedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	unspecified	Resource, such as a model element, which elaborates this requirement.
oslc_rm:specifiedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	unspecified	Resource, such as a model element, which specifies this requirement.
oslc_rm:affectedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	unspecified	Requirement is affected by a resource, such as defect or issue.
oslc_rm:trackedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	unspecified	Resource, such as a change request, which track this requirement.
oslc_rm:implementedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	unspecified	Resource, such as a change request, which implements this requirement.
oslc_rm:validatedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	unspecified	Resource, such as a test case, which validates this requirement.

Resource RequirementCollection

The RequirementCollection? resource may have the following set of properties. RequirementCollection? resource properties are not limited to the ones defined in this specification, service providers may provide additional properties. It is recommended that any additional properties exist in their own unique namespace and not use the namespaces defined in these specifications.

• Name: RequirementCollection
• Type URI http://open-services.net/ns/rm#RequirementCollection

Prefixed Name	Occurs	Read-only	Value-type	Representation	Range	Description
OSLC Core: Common Properties
dcterms:title	exactly-one	unspecified	XMLLiteral	n/a	n/a	Title (reference: Dublin Core) of the resource represented as rich text in XHTML content. SHOULD include only content that is valid inside an XHTML <span> element.
dcterms:description	zero-or-one	unspecified	XMLLiteral	n/a	n/a	Descriptive text (reference: Dublin Core) about resource represented as rich text in XHTML content. SHOULD include only content that is valid and suitable inside an XHTML <div> element.
dcterms:identifier	zero-or-one	True	String	n/a	n/a	An identifier for a resource. This identifier may be unique with a scope that is defined by the RM provider. Assigned by the service provider when a resource is created. Not intended for end-user display.
oslc:shortTitle	zero-or-one	unspecified	XMLLiteral	n/a	n/a	Short name identifying a resource, often used as an abbreviated identifier for presentation to end-users. SHOULD include only content that is valid inside an XHTML <span> element.
dcterms:subject	zero-or-many	False	String	n/a	n/a	Tag or keyword for a resource. Each occurrence of a dcterms:subject property denotes an additional tag for the resource.
dcterms:creator	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Either	foaf:Person	Creator of resource (reference: Dublin Core).
dcterms:contributor	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Either	foaf:Person	Contributor to resource (reference: Dublin Core).
dcterms:created	zero-or-one	True	DateTime	n/a	n/a	Timestamp of resource creation (reference: Dublin Core).
dcterms:modified	zero-or-one	True	DateTime	n/a	n/a	Timestamp last latest resource modification (reference: Dublin Core).
rdf:type	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Reference	n/a	The resource type URIs.
oslc:serviceProvider	zero-or-many	unspecified	Resource	Reference	oslc:ServiceProvider	The scope of a resource is a URI for the resource's OSLC Service Provider.
oslc:instanceShape	zero-or-one	unspecified	Resource	Reference	oslc:ResourceShape	Resource Shape that provides hints as to resource property value-types and allowed values.
oslc:discussion	zero-or-more	unspecified	Resource	Reference	oslc:Discussion	A sequence of notes and discussions about this requirement collection.
Prefixed Name	Occurs	Read-only	Value-type	Represen-tation	Range	Description
OSLC RM: Start of additional properties
oslc_rm:uses	zero-or-more	unspecified	Resource	Reference	n/a	A collection uses a requirement - the assocaited requirement is in the requirement collection.
Prefixed Name	Occurs	Read-only	Value-type	Represen-tation	Range	Description
Relationship properties: This grouping of properties are used to identify relationships between resources managed by other OSLC Service Providers
oslc_rm:elaboratedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	n/a	Resource which elaborates this requirement collection.
oslc_rm:specifiedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	n/a	Resource which specifies this requirement collection.
oslc_rm:affectedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	oslc_cm:ChangeRequest	Requirement Collection is affected by a reported defect.
oslc_rm:trackedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	oslc_cm:ChangeRequest	Change requests which track this requirement collection.
oslc_rm:implementedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	oslc_cm:ChangeRequest	Implemented by associated ChangeRequest? .
oslc_rm:validatedBy	zero-or-more	False	Resource	Reference	QM resource	QM resource which validates this requirement collection.

RM Service Provider Capabilities

Resource Shapes

OSLC RM services providers SHOULD support Resource Shapes? as defined in OSLC Core Specification?

Service Provider Resources

OSLC RM service providers MUST provide a Service Provider Resource? that can be retrieved at a implementation dependent URI.

OSLC RM service providers MAY provide a Service Provider Catalog Resource? that can be retrieved at a implementation dependent URI.

OSLC RM service providers MUST provide a oslc:serviceProvider property for their defined resources that will be the URI to a Service Provider Resource? .

OSLC RM service providers MUST supply a value of http://open-services.net/ns/rm# for the property oslc:domain on either oslc:ServiceProvider or oslc:ServiceProviderCatalog resources.

Creation Factories

OSLC RM service providers MUST support Creation Factories? and list them in the Service Provider Resource as defined by OSLC Core

Query Capabilities

OSLC RM service providers SHOULD support the Query Capabilities? as defined by OSLC Core.

The Query Capability MUST support these parameters:

• oslc.where
• oslc.select
• oslc.properties
• oslc.prefix

Delegated UIs

OSLC RM service providers MUST support the selection and creation of resources by delegated web-based user interface dialogs Delegated UIs? as defined by OSLC Core.

OSLC RM service providers MAY support the pre-filling of creation dialogs based on the definition at Delegated UIs? .

Usage Identifiers

OSLC RM service provider can identify the usage of various services with additional property values for the OSLC Core? defined oslc:usage property on oslc:Dialog, CreationFactory and QueryCapability. The oslc:usage property value of http://open-services.net/ns/core#default will be used to designate the default or primary service to be used by consumers when multiple entries are found.

The additional property values for oslc:usage are:

• http://open-services.net/ns/rm#ian - primarily used by ...

Version Compatibility with 1.0 Specifications

The goal is to provide a smooth transition to 2.0 for both Consumers and Providers. This section will clarify the usage of 1.0 media types so that Providers can support both 1.0 and 2.0 Consumers when HTTP requests are made for a resource with the same URI.

Network addressable resource URIs used for 1.0 resources for these types: Requirement, RequirementCollection, ServiceDescriptor and ServiceProviderCatalog, should not have to change. Consumers who support both 1.0 and 2.0, should only preserve these resource URIs. When a Provider starts to serve 2.0 resource formats, for instance the ServiceProvider resource, it is recommended to update its locally stored or cached information about the contents of the ServiceProvider resource as the URIs to various capabilities may have changed (query, delegated UIs, factories, etc).

Media Types

To identify a format of RDF/XML, the media type used for RM resource representations SHOULD be application/rdf+xml. The usage of the OSLC RM 1.0 defined media types of application/x-oslc-rm-requirement-1.0+xml, application/x-oslc-rm-requirement-collection-1.0+xml, application/x-oslc-rm-service-description-1.0+xml and application/x-oslc-disc-service-provider-catalog+xml is being depreciated.

Requesting formats

RM 1.0 consumers wanting to request 1.0 resource formats will not need to change if they used 1.0 defined media types ( application/x-oslc-rm*), see OSLC-RM 1.0. RM 2.0 consumers should use media types as defined in this specification for requests, excluding the OSLC RM 1.0 specific media types ( application/x-oslc-rm*). RM consumers supporting both 1.0 and 2.0, should request request both 1.0 and 2.0 media types on HTTP GET requests as usually done with HTTP request parameter Accept giving appropriate quality (See HTTP Accept) weighting to help distinguish their preferred content.

For additional guidance, a RM 2.0 consumer or provider MAY reference the OSLC-Core-Version HTTP header with a value of 2.0.

Appendix A: Samples

See RmSpecificationV2Samples?

Appendix B: Resource Shapes

See RmSpecificationV2Shapes?

Appendix C: Notices and References

Authors and Contact Information

• AndyBerner? (IBM)
• ScottBosworth? (IBM)
• JimConallen? (IBM)
• GeorgeDeCandio? (IBM)
• JeremyDick? (Integrate)
• BrendaEllis? (Northrop Grumman)
• RainerE? (Siemens)
• IanGreen? (IBM; OSLC RM Lead)
• AndreasKeis? (EADS)
• NicholasKruk? (IBM)
• ChrisMcGraw? (IBM)
• PaulMcMahan? (IBM)
• DevangParikh? (IBM)
• VishyRamaswamy? (IBM)
• RenRenganathan? (Citigroup)
• DavidRuiz? (Ravenflow)
• MatthewStone? (Stoneworks)
• DominicTulley? (IBM)
• RandyVogel? (Accenture)
• SimonWills? (Integrate)

Reporting Issues on the Specification

The working group participants who author and maintain this working draft specification, monitor a distribution list where issues or questions can be raised, see Requirements Management Mailing List

Also the issues found with this specification and their resolution can be found at RmSpecV2Issues?

Intellectual Property Covenant

The members of the Working Group (or as appropriate, their employers) have documented a Patent Non-Assertion Covenant for implementations of the CM 2.0 Specification, as described in the open-services.net Terms of Use. Details of the Covenant may be found here? .

References

• OSLC RM 1.0 - OSLC Requirements Management Specification 1.0?
• OSLC Core - OSLC Core Specification 1.0?
• OSLC UI Preview - OSLC UI Preview Guidance?
• OSLC Quality Management 2.0 - QmSpecificationV2? .
• OSLC Change Management 2.0 - CmSpecificationV2? .
• Dublin Core - Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1
• FOAF - Friend of a Friend (FOAF)
• HTTP - Hyper-text Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1)
• RDF/XML Concepts - RDF/XML Concepts and Abstract Syntax
• RDF/XML Syntax - RDF / XML Syntax Specification (Revised)
• URI Syntax - URI Generic Syntax
• XML Namespaces - Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition)
• XML Base - XML Base (Second Edition)
• XSD Datatypes - XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition