Re: ACTION-295: Should v. Must

"Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@gbiv.com>, 2012-10-19 14:18 -0700:

> On Oct 19, 2012, at 1:40 PM, David Wainberg wrote:
> > On 10/18/12 6:47 PM, Roy T. Fielding wrote:
> >> Editors, please note that the all-caps is only for highlighting
> >> the words so that requirements are easily found -- all usage
> >> of those words, whether in caps or not, is subject to RFC2119.
> > Roy -- I'm confused on this point. The W3C process doc says the following:
> > 
> > " The terms MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, REQUIRED, and MAY when
> > highlighted (through style sheets, and in uppercase in the source) are
> > used in accordance with RFC 2119 [RFC2119]."
> > 
> > It specifies "when highlighted," so I expected that to be the convention for all W3C docs.
> 
> Thanks David, I was not aware of that statement in the W3C process.

To be clear, it's not in the Process document as a general statement about
requirements or conventions for other W3C documents. It's simply a statement
in the "Status of this Document" of the Process document itself, And the
scope of it is restricted to just the Process document itself. It's clearly
not intended to express or imply any convention for other W3C documents.

> In RFC2119 itself, it says
> 
>  "In many standards track documents several words are used to signify
>   the requirements in the specification.  These words are often
>   capitalized.  This document defines these words as they should be
>   interpreted in IETF documents."
> 
> and it is a frequent bone of contention within the IETF.  The authors
> have been quite clear that capitalization is not necessary -- it is
> just good form to highlight them.  Current practice in the IETF is to
> use different words (might, ought, is, will) when not specifying
> protocol requirements.
> 
> ....Roy

-- 
Michael[tm] Smith http://people.w3.org/mike

Received on Saturday, 20 October 2012 06:04:40 UTC