Re: Question about BCP 14 / RFC 8174

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 11:17:55AM -0400, Barry Leiba wrote:
> You're not noticing that the OLD text also talks only about IETF
> documents by saying "many standards track documents".  The NEW text is
> intentionally broader, including all IETF documents -- Informational
> and Experimental as well.  That's because we've realized over time
> that it's useful to include BCP 14 key words in those also, not just
> in standards.

Thanks.  But that "many standards track documents" certainly did not
imply that others couldn't use BCP 14, and obviously many did.  It's bit
weird for an FYI to have normative language, but many FYIs document what
running code does that its authors or the IETF did not want on the
Standards Track, thus using BCP 14 in such FYIs is perfectly natural
(e.g., RFC 4559), though one might question why they were FYIs.

> It was not intentional to say that *only* IETF documents use these.
> But we're only writing, here, about and for the IETF, and BCP 14 only
> explicitly applies to the IETF.

As Simon asks, what about IAB, IRTF, and other non-IETF RFC streams?

Not that I think we need to update BCP 14 again.  Of all the things that
need attention I think BCP 14 is at the bottom of the list.  I'm not
even sure how to phrase this better.  At any rate, you've satisfied my
curiosity.

Nico
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