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  1. FHIR Specification Feedback
  2. FHIR-40494

Rules for Inter-version change are broken and need to be fixed in R6

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    • Icon: Change Request Change Request
    • Resolution: Persuasive with Modification
    • Icon: Medium Medium
    • FHIR Core (FHIR)
    • R5
    • FHIR Infrastructure
    • Change Management & Versioning (versions/compatibility)
    • 2.1.7.0.5
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      We will move this sentence "Once an artifact achieves Normative status, specific rules come into play around inter-version compatibility. These rules have implication for both forward and backward compatibility and are intended to allow implementations to exercise FHIR interfaces and process the content of FHIR resources safely while exchanging data between systems using different versions of FHIR." to before this "The following kinds of changes may be made to the specification:"

      We will append "These rules do not apply to non-normative content, including STU content within normative artifacts.

      We will change "The following kinds of changes may be made to the specification:" to "The following kinds of changes may be made to normative portions of the specification:"

      We will change "are changes that mean that previously conformant applications are no longer conformant to the updated specification" to "are changes that mean that previously conformant resource instances are no longer conformant to the updated specification"

      We will change "Non-substantive changes should not cause changes in any conformant application" to "Non-substantive changes should not cause changes in any conformant resource instances"

      We will change "In addition, this covers corrections that are judged not to create any expectation of change to a conformant application" to "In addition, this covers corrections that are judged not to create any expectation of change to a conformant resource instance."

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      We will move this sentence "Once an artifact achieves  Normative status, specific rules come into play around inter-version compatibility. These rules have implication for both forward and backward compatibility and are intended to allow implementations to exercise FHIR interfaces and process the content of FHIR resources safely while exchanging data between systems using different versions of FHIR." to before this "The following kinds of changes may be made to the specification:" We will append "These rules do not apply to non-normative content, including STU content within normative artifacts. We will change "The following kinds of changes may be made to the specification:" to "The following kinds of changes may be made to normative portions of the specification:" We will change "are changes that mean that previously conformant applications are no longer conformant to the updated specification" to "are changes that mean that previously conformant resource instances are no longer conformant to the updated specification" We will change " Non-substantive changes should not cause changes in any conformant application" to " Non-substantive changes should not cause changes in any conformant resource instances" We will change "In addition, this covers corrections that are judged not to create any expectation of change to a conformant application" to "In addition, this covers corrections that are judged not to create any expectation of change to a conformant resource instance."
    • Bas van den Heuvel/Josh Mandel: 11-0-0
    • Clarification
    • Non-substantive
    • R5

    Description

      This relates to FHIR-38876, whose comment states:

      This was discussed during the "Breaking Change" Birds of a Feather during the Sept 2022 WGM in Baltimore.

      The section "rules for inter-version change" is broken and needs to be revised.
      The section should also clearly indicate what kind of interoperability the HL7 community strives for; whether FHIR intends implementation or data representation based interoperability.

      I think FHIR should strive for data representation based interoperability; (normative) data from one version should be understood (parsed, interpreted) by implementations of a newer version.

      This was only partially resolved in the resolution to FHIR-38876. The aspect of data vs implementation interoperability has not been addressed yet. This must still be done (as was discussed in FHIR-i on 20-Feb-2023).

       

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            bvdh Bas van den Heuvel
            Bas van den Heuvel
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              Updated:
              Resolved: