RFC 2119

Dear QAWG,

I'm afraid I was less than coherent at the QA FTF. From RFC 2119 [1]:

    6. Guidance in the use of these Imperatives

    Imperatives of the type defined in this memo must be used with care
    and sparingly.  In particular, they 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.

So I wondered if our specification authors are being asked to use these
key words _only_ for "interoperation" or to limit the "potential for
causing harm." The RFC gives them so much force that they might look
attractive for other reasons (such as simply wanting an implementer to
do what one hopes). Kirill replied at your meeting that QA has
"priorities," but I would like to be certain RFC 2119 is used cleanly.

Thank you for the opportunity to observe your group.

[1] http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt

-- 
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@w3.org               tel:+1.858.483.4819
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

Received on Sunday, 3 March 2002 17:24:42 UTC