Subject: [Ltru] Confusing conformance language

From: "McDonald, Ira" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 08:41:59 -0700

Hi,

It's pretty much best practice in RFCs to avoid entirely
the use of lowercase 'must' or 'should' as some dubious
distinction from conformance imperatives 'MUST' or 'SHOULD'
(RFC 2119 terms).

The lowercase term 'must' appeared 28 times and the lowercase
term 'should' appeared 31 times in the latest Registry version
<draft-ietf-ltru-registry-03.txt>.  The uppercase term 'MUST'
appeared 88 times and the uppercase term 'SHOULD' appeared
21 times.

While I realize it would be a pain to disentangle, replace, and 
disambiguate these lowercase uses, this is low-hanging fruit for 
an IETF last call objection.  And it would cause too much
rewriting to be handled as directives to the RFC Editor, in
all likelihood.

Randy - do you have an opinion here?

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: [email-masked]

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---

From: "Scott Hollenbeck" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 18:32:23 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
> From: McDonald, Ira [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 11:42 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: [Ltru] Confusing conformance language
> 
> Hi,
> 
> It's pretty much best practice in RFCs to avoid entirely the 
> use of lowercase 'must' or 'should' as some dubious 
> term 'should' appeared 31 times in the latest Registry 
> version <draft-ietf-ltru-registry-03.txt>.  The uppercase term 'MUST'
> While I realize it would be a pain to disentangle, replace, 
> and disambiguate these lowercase uses, this is low-hanging 
> fruit for an IETF last call objection.  And it would cause 
> too much rewriting to be handled as directives to the RFC 
> Editor, in all likelihood.
> 

I do, and I'd prefer that the lower case forms NOT be used to avoid just the
sort of potential confusion described above.  The IESG doesn't seem to deal
with it consistently, either, so it's best to avoid the issue completely if
at all possible.

-Scott-

---

From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 21:16:18 -0700

Hi -

> From: "McDonald, Ira" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 8:41 AM
...
> Randy - do you have an opinion here?
...

In the spirit of "be liberal in what you accept", I don't mind a
lowercase "should" or "must" when they would the most natural
way of saying something.  After all, the whole point of writing
the words as "SHOULD" and "MUST" is to distinguish them as
having their special standards-speak meanings.

Having said that, I think that in keeping with the principle of being
"conservative in what you send", it is good to avoid the lower-case
ones as much as is practical.

Since our AD has a preference, and the editors are willing, the
choice is simple.  :-)

Randy

---

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 07:55:19 +0900

>Since our AD has a preference, and the editors are willing, the

Yes, and add to that the preference of this Co-Chair, who disagrees
with our AD on how lower-case musts/shoulds are best interpreted
(I think they are not the same as the upper-case ones), but very
much agrees with him that they should be avoided at all costs.

Regards,    Martin.