Re: [rtcweb] Uppercase question for RFC2119 words

[tom p. <[e-mail]>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Cridland" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:00 PM


> On 30 March 2016 at 18:59, Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>
wrote:
>
> For future reference, I tend not to zero-index my sentences. ;-)
>
> I think that MUST/SHOULD/MAY (the former two tempered by NOT) are
> well-understood, although the strength of SHOULD is usually
underestimated.
> OPTIONAL is probably obvious enough (though its implications may not
be),
> and SHALL/RECOMMENDED are uncommon enough that they're probably not
> understood nearly as well.

I would echo Brian's earlier comment that it is SHOULD and MAY that are
troublesome, while MUST and SHALL mean what they usually do and so do
not require further thought.  I read an I-D for a protocol using HTTP as
transport that said that if the server found the client not authorised
to access a resource, then it SHOULD return a 404 but MAY return a 403.

I think that that usage is ok but I also think it not compliant with
RFC2119 and it is the kind of scenario that the RFC ought to address.
The underlying issue I see for this case is that 'we are using HTTP and
have no control over what it says and you will be using an off the shelf
HTTP package and so will have no control over what it generates so like
it or lump it (strictly a personal interpretation of this).

Also, I see a number of ADs pushing for a SHOULD to be accompanied in
the I-D by the valid reasons why it will not happen, as opposed to
leaving it up to the implementor, and again, I see this as not
compliant, but again, I see it as a good idea.

Tom Petch

> > As a complete side thing, I wonder how this all seems to
> > German-speakers, as German uses initial caps for all nouns.  I
wonder
> > if anyone even notices if someone fails to do that.  I wonder if it
> > becomes puzzling, perhaps in some instances.
> >
> > Barry
> >
>