Conformance Statements

A Conformance Statement must be produced for each product registered as conformant to a particular Product Standard. It is constructed by completing the appropriate Conformance Statement Questionnaire and it must be maintained in an up-to-date form.

A unique self-contained Conformance Statement Questionnaire is available for each Product Standard at http://www.opengroup.org/csqs.

A Conformance Statement uniquely identifies the product and provides details of the way that the product implementation meets the relevant Product Standard. It also identifies the precise environment and software configuration in which conformance was tested, and if applicable defines the binary-compatible family (see Binary-Compatible Family).

The following are examples of what may be included in a Conformance Statement:

• Either the Product Standard, or the specifications or standards, may state that a conformant implementation may optionally support some particular feature. The Conformance Statement establishes beyond doubt whether the product in question actually does support that feature.

• The specification may state that a particular parameter or limit value is implementation-defined. In that case the Conformance Statement establishes the exact value for the Registered Product.

• The Product Standard may specify further information required in the Conformance Statement.

• In many cases the Product Standard allows support for one or more of a defined set of communications protocols, and in these cases the actual protocols supported must be recorded in the Conformance Statement. Where a Product Standard does not mandate any particular protocols, it allows any supported protocols to be declared in the Conformance Statement.

In addition, in the cases where it is impossible or economically not feasible to provide automated test suites, the Conformance Statement can help to establish exactly how conformance to the specification is demonstrated.

If a Product Standard has a communications aspect, then as well as the Registered Product being tested, other systems will be involved in testing for conformance. (Appropriate equipment must be at the other end of the link and there are likely to be other elements that are involved in establishing the connection.)

The Conformance Statement should declare any conformance or interoperability testing that has taken place, and must specify the exact configuration of all systems used in testing.

It should be noted that where no specific Indicator of Compliance is specified in the Product Standard, applicants will have performed sufficient tests of their own to undertake the obligations of the Trademark License Agreement; however, such tests will be specific to each individual vendor.

When complete, the Conformance Statement is submitted to the Conformance Administrator for electronic review as part of Product Registration. Applicants need to obtain a user ID and password for access to the Web to enable them to create, edit, recall, and save Conformance Statements in progress, which remain hidden from the public. When approved, the Conformance Administrator transfers the completed Conformance Statement to the public pages on The Open Group web site at http://www.opengroup.org/csqs.

Licensees of the Open Brand are required to make the Conformance Statements for Registered Products available for examination on request to prospective customers free-of-charge. Suppliers can fulfill this obligation by:

• Promoting printed matter

• Making available documents on their own web site

• Pointing to The Open Group web site at http://www.opengroup.org/csqs

Licensees are required to keep Conformance Statements maintained up-to-date to ensure that the Conformance Statement always reflects the most current and accurate information. If any material changes are made to the product which affect the Conformance Statement, an amendment must be made to the copy of the Conformance Statement on The Open Group web site (submitted via the web), and to any other form in which the Conformance Statement is made available. Note that the Conformance Administrator reviews any changes to the Conformance Statement before they are made public.

Buyers of Registered Products are strongly recommended to obtain access to the relevant Conformance Statement as it contains valuable information regarding the product and the way it conforms to the standards and specifications referred to in the Product Standard.