Conformance

Products may conform to SPIRIT at two levels:

• They can claim conformance to an individual specification or ad hoc group of specifications identified within the SPIRIT procurement guide.

• They can claim conformance to a number of predefined (by SPIRIT) "sets" at either the component or system set level.

The former implies conforming to one or more individual software specifications and the latter to predetermined combinations of specifications identified within a SPIRIT component set or a SPIRIT system set.

For a product to conform to individual SPIRIT specifications, the supplier must guarantee that any external interface or protocol offered by the product conforms to the relevant SPIRIT specifications(s). All the mandatory functions contained in the relevant SPIRIT specification(s) must be implemented. Interfaces internal to the product are outside the scope of SPIRIT.

For a product to claim conformance to an identified combination of specifications making up a predefined SPIRIT component or system set, each individual component of the product must conform to SPIRIT at the individual specification level and the overall combination of specifications must be as specified in a Component or system set (see Part 2, System Sets, Conformance to System Sets for further details of conformance to system sets).

If a supplier makes a claim that a product conforms to an individual SPIRIT software specification, a SPIRIT component set or a SPIRIT system set, the supplier must indicate that such a claim is made by the supplier only, and that no determination has been made by SPIRIT or the NMF as to whether or not the product in fact conforms.