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Re: Negotiated noncompliance

Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com> Thu, 17 August 2000 08:50 UTC

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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 01:47:50 -0700
To: lear@cisco.com
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Subject: Re: Negotiated noncompliance
Cc: John Gardiner Myers <jgmyers@netscape.com>, drums@cs.utk.edu
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At 01:32 AM 8/17/00 -0700, Eliot Lear wrote:
>If one implementation in an SMTP conversation demonstrates its failure
>to comply with this standard, the other implementation MAY vary from
>this standard if its developer believes it has sufficient knowledge as
>to the intent of the other side.

Implementors do not need language in a standard to tell them that they can 
do things differently if they know what they are doing.


>However, it does risk misinterpreting
>the intent of the other implementation, which may lead to altered or
>lost messages, protocol deadlocks, or other failures.  Thus great care
>must be taken in such circumstances.

Absent the details of what constitutes "great care", what does a reader 
learn that they did not already know?

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464
675 Spruce Drive,  Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA

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