Re: Formality: References from std-track to BCP

[Thomas Narten <narten@us.ibm.com>]

> In reviewing draft-rfc-editor-rfc2223bis-04.txt before Last Call, I came 
> across the following paragraph:

>       Some standards track document use certain capitalized words
>       ("MUST", "SHOULD", etc.) to specify precise requirement-levels for
>       technical points.  BCP 14 (RFC 2119) [3] defines the proper
>       interpretation of these capitalized words in IETF documents.  If
>       these words are used and capitalized, RFC 2119 should be cited (as
>       specified in RFC 2119) and included as a normative reference.  (It
>       is noted that this is a formal violation of the rules of RFC 2026,
>       since RFC 2119 has BCP category.)


> I believe this is inconsistent with both common sense and current practice, 
> since we *routinely* let standards-track documents (at any level) refer to 
> BCPs for things like registry process (see MIME for a prominent instance).

> But is there something published that supports this view formally?
> RFC 2026 is .... unclear.

RFC 2026 just neglected  to get this part right. I suspect it was an
omission, rather than intention.

Thomas