Re: [v6ops] RFC 2119 language in an informational draft?

["Pascal Thubert (pthubert)" <[e-mail]>]

> From: v6ops <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Jen Linkova
> Sent: vendredi 6 août 2021 5:39
> To: Warren Kumari <[e-mail]>
> Cc: v6ops list <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [v6ops] RFC 2119 language in an informational draft?
> 
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2021 at 2:22 AM Warren Kumari <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >> May I suggest that an informational draft doesn't impose requirements,
> so there is no need for RFC 2119 language?
> >> I think that that suggestion is erroneous.
> >
> > +1.
> >
> > While this might be argumentum ad antiquitam, it is clear that this
> isn't the standard interpretation.
> >
> > Looking through the RFCs 8000 and above, I find 262 Informational
> documents using RFC2119 (RFC8174) language, and >4000 instances:
> > $ for file in (grep -l 'Category: Informational' rfc8???.txt)
> >                                                   egrep
> "SHOULD|MUST|REQUIRED|SHALL|RECOMMENDED|MAY|OPTIONAL" $file
> >                                               end >
> > ~/tmp/info_2119.txt $ wc -l ~/tmp/info_2119.txt
> >   4023
> 
> [pedantic mode on] An informational document may contain quotes from the
> standard ones, so your grep would count them as well.
> 
Hello Jen,

In that case, maybe is makes sense to allow the MUST (should it be between quotes?) but not to allow the BCP 14 snippet.

Now, can there be BCP 14 text in an informational that would go straight through AD sponsorship, and document a protocol that was defined outside the IETF, e.g., implemented by one company and offered to the community? I guess uppercase makes sense too in such document, and the BCP 14 snippet does too.

No later than yesterday I received a proposed amendment, for an informational text, that contained MUST and SHOULD. So yes, the mistake must be commonplace as people are not necessarily aware of the practice. 

Net-Net: I see the value of raising a warning in a nit check, and document the exception in the shepherd write up if the uppercase is confirmed, but not that we can bar it the hard way.

Keep safe;

Pascal