Hi Randy,
On 02/10/2017 17:37, Randy Presuhn wrote:
Hi -
On 10/2/2017 7:18 AM, Robert Wilton wrote:
This discussion may be conflating two issues:
(i) Does RFC text have to use RFC2119 terms to be normative?
RFC 8174 categorically states that text can still be normative
without using RFC 2119 terms.
Thus it's clear that their usage is not necessarily necessary.
(ii) Should standards track documents use RFC 2119 terms?
If 93% of recently published standards track RFCs make use of RFC
2119 terms then that seems like a strong consistency argument to use
them unless there is a good reason not to.
I think RFC 2119 itself provides a fair counter-argument to the
imposition of such a requirement. RFC 2119 states that "[i]mperatives
of the type defined in this memo must be used with care and sparingly."
To use "with care" and "sparingly" seems contrary to the notion of
employing them merely for "consistency."
I interpret this slightly differently.
If a standards track RFC has some text that should be interpreted in a
way that matches (or perhaps is close) to the RFC 2119 language
semantics then it is more consistent and less ambiguous to use RFC 2119
terms since the vast majority of other RFCs are using it. If nothing in
the draft matches the RFC 2119 language then of course you don't need to
cite it.
It might be interesting to look at the 7% of RFCs that don't use it and
see if that was because it wasn't necessary, due to the authors choice,
or some other reason.
Thanks,
Rob
Randy
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