OSLCfest 2022: OSLC Profiles
Channel: Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration
Date: 2023-05-23

Linking profiles are non-normative supplement to OSLC specifications, aim to ensure interoperability between OSLC enabled applications for linking use cases. It is important to note that OSLC interoperability is not automatically implied by OSLC specifications, as the specifications allow for high degree of conformance variability. Linking use cases result in establishing OSLC links across OSLC resources in different applications, possibly within the same OSLC domain or across domains. For example, a requirements provider from one vendor establishes traceability links to a requirements provider from another vendor. A cross domain example would be a PLM BOM application establishing traceability links to a requirements application by a different vendor. The cross vendors emphasis is because this is the context for interoperability challenges. Linking use cases may vary in capability as described later in this document, but all linking use cases require to establish connection between the consumer application and the provider application, and ability to select a resource with the provider to link with a resource of the consumer, and storage of the link in one of the applications. From that point onwards there is a variability across the use cases related to bi-directional navigability (are both applications aware of the link) and also behaviors that depend if the application supports configuration management or not. The introduction of the profile comes to help users qualify whether two OSLC applications meet compatibility level to perform a set of use OSLC linking cases, and software vendors on how to build/consume OSLC linking related services that ensure interoperability.

In this presentation we will provide an overview to the linking profiles. how they are specified. and how they assist in creating inter-operable OSLC implementations for linking