RE: NEW ISSUE: Define "ought to"

If I'm following you correctly, this could be restated:

*         "MAY" - Strictly at your discretion based on what matters to you

*         "ought to" - Or your implementation will be less effective/efficient than it could be, without hurting anyone else

*         "SHOULD" - Or your implementation will cause peers / the network to suffer for your stupidity

*         "MUST" - Or you won't be able to interoperate with anyone



-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:julian.reschke@gmx.de]
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 11:48 AM
To: cowwoc
Cc: ietf-http-wg@w3.org
Subject: Re: NEW ISSUE: Define "ought to"



On 2013-07-30 18:03, cowwoc wrote:

> Julian,

>

>      I understand the "legal" difference between the two but your

> reply didn't actually explain the benefit of using "ought to" instead

> of "SHOULD" (especially in light of the fact that the former causes

> confusion).

>

> Gili



The reason we don't use SHOULD is that BCP14 keywords SHOULD be used

sparingly:



    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.



Best regards, Julian