Re: Spin bit decision

[Lars Eggert <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

yet again as an individual.

On 2018-10-2, at 16:07, [e-mail] wrote:
> On 10/02/18 14:55, Lars Eggert wrote:
>> We can certainly consider this - it may give us some data about the current capabilities and configurations of the participating stacks.
> 
> More than that: you seem to be implying that automated interop testing outweighs textual specification. No problem with that; let's focus on test definition then.

I'm not implying that at all, and I'm confused as to why you'd think so?

>>> Clearly you now have this degree of freedom: weaken that MUST into a MAY or a SHOULD, separately for each role. But for what purpose ?
>> The point I'm trying to make is that it in practice doesn't matter if the spec says "MUST", "SHOULD" or "MAY", since it doesn't affect interop, and doesn't affect performance. Essentially, each stack can decide in isolation whether to spin, echo, do nothing, grease the bits, etc., no matter what language we put in the spec.
> 
> Sure. So, what is there to lose by saying "MUST" anyway ?

This is a discussion the WG needs to have after there is consensus to merge the spin bit proposal.

The point I can't seem to be getting across is that irrespective of what the WG decides to require, there is no penalty for individual stacks at deployment time (or after) to do whatever they wish, since the spin bit by design has no impact on protocol operation and interop.

Lars