Re: [tcpm] Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-gont-tcpm-urgent-data-00

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Fernando Gont wrote:
> Hello, Joe,
...
> At some point, the specs (RFC 793) were ambiguous. So implementations
> simply picked one of the possible intrepretations. The IETF later
> mandated the other possible interpretation. But nobody changed their
> stacks. And nobody will. At some point it may have been an
> implementation error. Nowadays... who cares? it's the de-facto standard.

FWIW, there was an errata in RFC961 in 1985, that indicates that page 17
of RFC793 is incorrect, and that the pointer is to the last octet of
urgent data (not the first octet of non-urgent data).

That information is reiterated in RFC1122 in 1989, and is very specific
in overriding RFC793.  There is no remaining ambiguity. There is only
the difference between what is implemented and what the requirements state.

That does NOT make it a 'de-facto standard'; it can also be a 'de-facto
bug'.

The key question is why RFC1122 chose the "points to last URG byte"
interpretation, and why we think that should be changed. Simply
describing it as "what has been deployed" is insufficient justification
to call this anything other than a bug without further rationale.

If that rationale exists, it would be useful to provide it.

Joe

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