Subject: Re: References

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:35:06 -0700 (PDT)

Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov-usefor@xxxxxxxxx>:

>The USEFOR document can say that certain types of messages MAY require the 
>References header. But I just think this should be obvious.

It is interesting to note that just this morning in the office we had a 
discussion about the use of the terms "obvious" and "clearly", and that 
when someone says something is either "obvious" or "clearly", it usually 
isn't.

In this case, USEFOR defers to RFC2822, which clearly and obviously says
that References is optional -- specifically, it uses the RFC2119 term
"SHOULD", and in some places only "may", and further talks about how to
process replies that do not contain a References header. It is hard to 
imagine that this is a requirement.

Saying that USEFOR "obviously" says that some articles require a
References header is, well, contrary to what USEFOR actually says. That's 
fine, it has been changed and we can live with that, as long as the change 
is propogated to all relevant documents, which includes USEPRO.

We could change it back, but so far only a very small handful of people 
have been arguing that RFC2119 language is justified, and even then they 
haven't been providing any examples of interoperability issues, just 
things like "ensure that definitions are obeyed" and they think it should 
say "MUST".