UML25 — Active and passive

I think the phrases "active" and "passive" just get in the way and we would be well advised to drop them from the specification. They seem to mean various things to different people. I think it would be better to state the following, primary (unlike "active" and "passive") properties of objects and their classes:

1. They may or may not have their own thread of control (this is often called "active" but why not be more direct?)
1a. Which may be single or possibly multiple (not sure if this is relevant)
1b. Which may start automatically or may be explicitly started (but why whom??)

2. They may or may not have a queue for incoming events (often associated with #1, but we can decide whether they are completely linke)

3. They may or may not support operations which, if called, create new executions with their own threads of control (this is often called "passive")

4. They may or may not have state machines (often associated with #1, but there seems some debate about whether that is necessary)

Note that various combinations of these are possible, so an object could be both "active" and "passive".

But those words are just too empty in themselves unless they are defined in terms of these other properties, and if we do that, why do we need the terms "active" and "passive" at all?

The current specification has a lousy definition of the terms, one that is circular.

Discussion
It may or may not be better to not use the phrases “active” and “passive”, but this is well established now in UML. The
2.5 specification is clear that an “active” class is precisely one with “isActive=true”, and the OCL constraintsmake it
clear what this entails. The other points discussed in the issue are also now more clearly addressed in the specification.
Disposition: Closed - No Change