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Re: suggested revision for MUST/SHOULD

Paul Hoffman / IMC <phoffman@imc.org> Fri, 28 July 2000 01:21 UTC

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Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 18:21:06 -0700
To: drums@cs.utk.edu
From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <phoffman@imc.org>
Subject: Re: suggested revision for MUST/SHOULD
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At 7:29 PM -0400 7/27/00, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
>D. J. Bernstein <djb@cr.yp.to>:
>>  I agree that this needs discussion.
>>
>>  However, I have a different suggestion: the definitions of ``SHOULD'' et
>>  al. should simply be copied from RFC 2119, with no extra text.
>>
>>  (I say ``copied'' rather than ``incorporated by reference'' to avoid the
>>  issue of whether smtpupd is obliged to follow RFC 2119, section 6.)
>>
>>  Most readers will be expecting the RFC 2119 definitions. Many readers
>>  will misinterpret the document if it uses anything else---they'll never
>>  realize that there are new definitions.
>>
>>  I've checked a bunch of ``SHOULD''s in the document, and they all seem
>>  to predate the new definitions, which appeared in smtpupd-09. Presumably
>>  they were written with the RFC 2119 (or almost identical RFC 1123)
>>  definitions in mind. The new definitions seem to have screwed up the
>>  meaning of these ``SHOULD''s.
>>
>>  ---Dan
>
>I think this is a good suggestion.

I agree with Dan and Eric. A typical implemetor will assume that MUST 
and SHOULD are used as they are in every other mail standard, namely 
as they are stated in 2119.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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