Purpose
There are three distinct situations in which an extension producer may end support for a reference set in an extension.
- Responsibility for maintenance of a reference set is transferred to another extension producer or to SNOMED International
- For example, a reference set currently maintained as part of a National extension may be transferred to SNOMED International if it has recognized international value.
- A decision is made to stop maintaining a reference set, without transferring the responsibility to another organization
- For example, an organization may no longer have the resources to maintain a reference set that it created, although the reference set is still considered useful.
- A decision is made to deprecate use of an existing reference set
- For example, if a reference set is no longer relevant, has been superseded by a more useful reference set, or is considered inaccurate or misleading in some way.
Principles
When the owner of a reference set wants to end support for the reference set, this should be indicated by making the changes described in the process section below.
In the situation where the reference set belongs to an extension, the owner of the extension may only make these changes to a reference set that is currently in an extension module for which it is responsible. The exception to that rule is that, in the case where a responsibility for maintenance of a reference set is transferred to another organization, the organization to which responsibility is transferred is required to take some of these steps.
Prior to ending support for a reference set, it is important that the reference set producer has an overview of the extent to which the reference set is used. If a producer and owner of a reference set continues to distribute an unsupported reference set with active members, there is an inherent risk that it will continue to be used. However, deprecation formally inactivates the references set members to mim this possibility.
Process
The table below provides details and considerations on the process of inactivating a reference set.
Reason for Ending Support | Organization responsible currently responsible for the reference set | Organization accepting transfer of responsibility for the reference set |
Transfer of responsibility for maintenance to an organization that is responsible for a module on which the current module depends |
|
|
Transfer of responsibility for maintenance to an organization that is not responsible a module on which the current module depends |
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|
Ending maintenance of without formally deprecating continued use of a reference set |
| - |
Deprecating continued use of a reference set |
| - |
Distribution of an Inactivated Reference Set and its Members
If the extension producer wants to avoid users from needing to import a deprecated or transferred reference set in future releases, the inactivated reference set may be separated from the main extension release (e.g. it could be in a separate release package, or accessible via a separate service or from a static location). Changes in packaging must be formally notified to users of the extension in advance of the change.
Warning
It is essential that the inactive reference set concept, metadata and reference set members are included in the first release of the original release package after the changes are made. Otherwise users applying delta updates will not be aware that the change has been made.
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