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Computed Value (the concept in the propdef table) is a UA-internal representation of a property mainly meant for supporting animations. It’s necessary for animatable properties to produce interpolable computed values. Inferred values (such as with various <position> variants, or single-value border-radius-* values) will likely need to be added to the computed value to produce an interpolable result. Even if a property is not animatable, it’s probably useful to design the computed value such that it could support interpolation.
Serialization (such as the result from getComputedStyle) is a valid CSS string representation that might only have a tenuous connection to the computed value representation. Its main characteristic is that it must ‘round-trip’ with parsing. Inferred values can be omitted here. If a grammar allows ordering options, the serialized value should prefer an order (usually what’s presented in the grammar).
This page lists a number of design patterns that have been identified for computed values.
If you're a spec editor, you should check the “computed value:” definition of the properties in your spec with this document.