RE: A question about requirements

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

--On 22. september 2003 11:40 +0200 "Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB)" 
<lars-erik.jonsson@ericsson.com> wrote:

> > As I watch discussions in some other groups, and am possibly
> > approaching such an issue in my WG, I have started wondering
> > about the force of requirements documents published as
> > Informational.
> <snip>
> > yet fill them with words like MUST, MUST NOT, SHOULD etc...
>
> Are there really documents published as Informational, using
> these words? In ROHC, we were about to do that a few years ago,
> but we were told by the AD to rewrite the document and only
> use regular words (must, should, etc).
>
> If the words are used as defined by 2119, I interpret them as
> only intended for standards track documents. If used in e.g.
> informational documents, I think the meaning of the words
> should be defined within such documents.

repeated bone of contention when discussing documents in the IESG.
I believe, and I think the IESG currently believes, that the uppercase 
words are a tool for making a specification clear; as such, it does not 
make sense to deny the tools for clarity to documents just because we are 
not making them IETF-approved standards track documents.

it makes perfect sense to claim that you implement an Informational 
protocol (people do that all the time); I think it's in the best interests 
of the Internet that those protocols' specifications be as clear as 
possible.

                      Harald