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

"Randall Gellens (IETF)" <rg+ietf@randy.pensive.org> Sat, 13 August 2016 13:24 UTC

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Subject: Re: New Version Notification for draft-leiba-rfc2119-update-00.txt
From: "Randall Gellens (IETF)" <rg+ietf@randy.pensive.org>
In-Reply-To: <379B29D6-2C56-4EB1-BA50-4740A605C9D0@qti.qualcomm.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 2016 14:05:20 +0100
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To: Pete Resnick <presnick@qti.qualcomm.com>
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Cc: Barry Leiba <barryleiba@computer.org>, IETF discussion list <ietf@ietf.org>
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I've written text such as "For clients, support for X is REQUIRED."

Sent from my iPad

> On Aug 13, 2016, at 12:13 AM, Pete Resnick <presnick@qti.qualcomm.com> wrote:
> 
> 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. - +1 (858)651-4478

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