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Re: Normative/Informative References
--On torsdag, januar 02, 2003 07:56:38 -0500 Thomas Narten
<narten@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>> but other folk (including Braden) do not see the logic in
>> a normative reference in an informative document
>
> Interestingly enough, the current wording the RFC editor came up with
> doesn't seem to distinguish between standards and non-standards
> track. It seems to say all RFCs should do the split. That is not my
> recollection of where we ended up (though I think I'd prefer it on the
> whole, since so many people seem to just not want to do the split if
> its not *required*), so I'd welcome being pointed to more definitive
> words. I just looked at draft-rfc-editor-rfc2223bis-03.txt and
> http://www.rfc-editor.org/policy.html
I've objected before to the idea that informative documents cannot specify
protocols - the decision to make something informational is (mainly)
orthogonal to whether it's a protocol. And protocol descriptions need both
the MUST/MAY machinery (if they want it) and the split references.
I would add "if they want it" to the split references thing as well. While I
think it is fine to encourage split references, there are bound to be cases
where it will be an awkward thing to have as a hard and fast rule for
informational documents, such as some republication situations.
Ned