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Re: [Simple] Pres Data Model Open Issue #5: what does idle mean?



Jonathan,

I'm having a sense of deja vu here. I thought previous discussions led to the conclusion that idle means exactly that, i.e. no activity since some time point, which may or may not be provided, depending on whether the idler felt that this would violate privacy.

The conclusion that one could jump to based on such an indication would be implicit to the type of service, device, or person. The likelihood of a no answer is conditional and thus requires some intelligence to guess that. I thought this would be left to humans that have such cognitive skills.

While lack of user input is the most likely basis, this can be fooled or not depending on what the thing reporting is. Does a user include automatons? I would say that is an implementation detail and just leave it at a "no activity since" definition. I see no reason to constrain this. My 2 cents from the peanut gallery.

Mike




At 05:29 PM 9/28/2004 -0400, Jonathan Rosenberg wrote:
This isn't really an issue with the data model so much as rpid, but its used as an example in the data model.

The question is, in the context of the data model, what does <idle> mean? Does <idle> apply to a person? To a device? To a service? For each case, what does it mean? Does it merely mean, "the likelihood is that attempts to reach this service will result in a no-answer", or is it something more specific, such as "idle indicates that no user input has been provided to this device (service) recently".

The first question is to determine its definition, I think. Once you know what it means, you can decide whether it applies to devices, services or person. I'm somewhat on the fence here. One argument is that you want a concise and measurable definition, so that a PUA can concretely say, "this service is idle", and have the recipient of the document know what it means. That would argue for something based on user input. The problem with that definition is that ultimately, the lack of user input is useful because it is an indicator of the real quantity of interest - the likelihood that I'll get a "no answer". So, why not define it as the data we really want. The problem is that you will see vast differences across devices in declaring themselves idle, and thus differing interpretations of what to do when you see it in a document. Feature or bug? You decide.

At this moment, I'm inclined to the concrete definition (lack of user input), and have it be associated with the device, not the service. I know others have different opinions. Lets sort this out.

[this is the final open issue I am aware of]

Thanks,
Jonathan R.
--
Jonathan D. Rosenberg, Ph.D.                600 Lanidex Plaza
Chief Technology Officer                    Parsippany, NJ 07054-2711
dynamicsoft
jdrosen at dynamicsoft.com                     FAX:   (973) 952-5050
http://www.jdrosen.net                      PHONE: (973) 952-5000
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