Should we refer to publiccode.yml as a "spec" rather than a "standard"?

[bfabio]

It was pointed out to me that publiccode.yml is not an official standard in the formal sense, and that calling it a standard might be slightly misleading.

Thinking about it, I believe this makes sense, specification (or spec) feels more accurate for now, and would still be valid terminology even if the format is eventually adopted or formalized by an official standards body.

What do you think? Would it make sense to revisit the language used in the documentation and messaging?

[jgroenen]

Not sure, there are many "de facto" or "community" standards. I'd say this is one of them.

[bfabio]

To me "Standard" sounds a bit heavy and maybe pompous, especially for something that’s not massively used.

And thinking about it, lots of formats call themselves a "spec" or just "format", in fact: Kubernetes manifests, Cargo.toml, package.json. And they are waaaaaaaay more popular than publiccode.yml.

[bzg]

I believe "spec" would be more accurate indeed.

The goal of the publiccode.yml maintainers can be to turn this spec as a de facto (or "community") standard, but then it's up to others to call it that.