Re: What parts of a spec should be normative?

Not sure what happened but a chunk of my reply got eaten up.

The last part should have read:

Either way, the normative or informative quality of a section isn’t defined by the presence of absence of RFC 2119 keywords. In fact, RFC 8174[1], which updates RFC 2119, states so explicitly: 

> These words [the RFC keywords] can be used as defined here, but using them is not required.  Specifically, normative text does not require the use of these key words. They are used for clarity and consistency when that is what's wanted, but a lot of normative text does not use them and is still normative.

Hope this helps clarify.

Best,

—tobie
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[1] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174