- From: Adam Barth <w3c@adambarth.com>
- Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 14:35:35 -0700
On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 2:13 PM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky at mit.edu> wrote: >>> Of course nothing prevents us from saying UAs MUST NOT sniff but if they >>> do >>> anyway they MUST use a given algorithm, right? >> >> That's a contrary to duty imperative, which is something that's been >> puzzling philosophers for centuries. ?A more sensible requirement >> would be that user agents SHOULD NOT sniff (for reasons XYZ), but, if >> they do, they MUST use a the following algorithm. > > Except that in practice SHOULD NOT is treated as carte blanche to do the > undesirable thing. ?It has no teeth. ?MUST NOT doesn't much either, but it's > _something_ at least (in the sense that one can clearly claim that violating > a MUST NOT is a bug). In any case, lawyering the requirement level in the spec isn't the way to solve these problems. You need to change the underlying incentives to actually affect what gets implemented. Adam
Received on Tuesday, 7 September 2010 14:35:35 UTC