Re: R41 in draft-ietf-v6ops-cpe-simple-security-07

[james woodyatt <jhw@apple.com>]

On Jul 30, 2009, at 11:12, teemu.savolainen@nokia.com wrote:
> How to actually read Recommended MUST? Essentially as SHOULD?
> Recommended SHOULD then? As MAY?

My thoughts on that have always been that this document provides  
recommendations, not requirements, as it was originally intended to be  
a Best Current Practices document (now Informational) and not a  
Standards Track document.  Nevertheless, it's supposed to be a useful  
set of guidelines for vendors of residential IPv6 gateway equipment,  
at least one of which would like to cite the RFC number and claim  
conformance.  The use of normative language in this document is  
employed therefore to make such claims testable.

So.  MUST means you gotta do this if you want to cite the RFC and  
claim you followed the guidelines.  SHOULD means you gotta have a  
reasonable case for not following the guideline if you want to cite  
the RFC and claim you followed the guidelines.  MAY means you're  
explicitly allowed the option and still you can cite the RFC and claim  
you followed the guidelines.  If you cite the RFC and claim you  
followed the guidelines, when in fact you didn't, then we can all  
point our fingers and tattle to your mothers.

It might also help the authors of documents for other organizations to  
have normative language in the RFC that they can reference externally  
as their own requirements in one lump, e.g. "the device shall  
implement all the recommendations described in RFC #### with the  
following amendments, blah blah blah".

I hoped that a disquisition on that topic would not be necessary in  
the intro section.  Is it?


--
james woodyatt <jhw@apple.com>
member of technical staff, communications engineering