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FW: ISSUE: Inappropriate usage of RFC 2119 key words



-----Original Message-----
From: Glen Zorn [mailto:gwz@net-zen.net] 
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 12:39 PM
To: 'radiusext@ops.ietf.org'
Cc: 'iesg@ietf.org'
Subject: ISSUE: Inappropriate usage of RFC 2119 key words

Description of issue:  Inappropriate usage of RFC 2119 key words
Submitter name: Glen Zorn

Submitter email address: gwz@net-zen.net

Date first submitted: 22 October 2009

Document: draft-ietf-radext-design-09

Comment type: T

Priority: S

Section: 2.1.1

Rationale/Explanation of issue:
Section 6 of RFC 2119 states:

6. Guidance in the use of these Imperatives

   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 retransmissions)  For
   example, they must not be used to try to impose a particular method
   on implementors where the method is not required for
   interoperability.

The section of the draft in question says:

   It is worth noting that since RADIUS only supports unsigned integers
   of 32 or 64 bits, attributes using signed integer data types or
   unsigned integer types of other sizes will require code changes, and
   SHOULD be avoided.

It is difficult to see how either harm or interoperability problems could
arise from correctly implemented code changes; indeed, this appears to be a
classic case of the use of RFC 2119 keywords to "try to impose a particular
method on implementors where the method is not required for
interoperability".

Requested change:
Since the only rationale offered for the prohibition is the spurious one of
avoiding code changes (something that is certainly implementation-specific),
the section should be removed altogether.


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