Re: New Version Notification for draft-leiba-rfc2119-update-00.txt

[Pete Resnick <[e-mail]>]

On 11 Aug 2016, at 6:44, Stewart Bryant wrote:

> Optional is useful in a requirements RFC.
>
> Feature x is REQUIRED
>
> Feature y is OPTIONAL

One last (and perhaps fruitless) attempt to keep this section and 
deprecate the adjectives:

Using REQUIRED and OPTIONAL results in exactly the problem of using 
passive voice anywhere: REQUIRED by whom? OPTIONAL for whom? If you say, 
"A MUST do X and B MAY do Y", it is perfectly clear which actor is 
responsible (and in network protocols there are inevitably at least 2). 
If you say "X is REQUIRED and Y is OPTIONAL", you'll end up needing more 
text to explain the actors and their roles.

Using REQUIRED and OPTIONAL is lazy. It makes specs less clear. They 
ought to be dropped.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - [phone]