Subject: RE: Spin bit decision
From: Mike Bishop <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Cc: IETF QUIC WG <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2018 16:50:32 +0000
List-Id: Main mailing list of the IETF QUIC working group <quic.ietf.org>

I don’t think it’s a grim view, I think it’s a pragmatic view.  Our role is to specify the things which are fundamental to the protocol and have to happen for peers to interoperate.  Mis-using normative language for other things is an abuse of the process -- that's kind of the point of RFC 6919.

RFC 2119 says:
In particular, [normative language] MUST only be used where it is actually required for interoperation or to limit behavior which has potential for causing harm (e.g., limiting retransmisssions)  For example, they must not be used to try to impose a particular method on implementors where the method is not required for interoperability.

Given that the spin bit is not “actually required for interoperation,” but is the very definition of “try to impose a particular method on implementors,” I’d say that RFC 2119 imperatives are unwarranted.

-----Original Message-----
From: QUIC <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of [email-masked]
Sent: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 8:05 AM
To: Lars Eggert <[email-masked]>
Cc: IETF QUIC WG <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: Spin bit decision

On 10/02/18 16:00, Lars Eggert wrote:

>

> 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.

It is getting across, but it is a very grim view of the standardization process itself. Are there many examples of MUST in RFCs that turned out to be ignored by implementations just because they were not part of the core semantics and hence not enforced by other peers ?

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