SHOULD and conformance

[mnot@…]

Up until now, we've had this to say about the status of SHOULDs regarding conformance (p1, "Conformance and Error Handling):

An implementation is considered conformant if it complies with all of the requirements associated with the roles it partakes in HTTP. Note that SHOULD-level requirements are relevant here, unless one of the documented exceptions is applicable.

After reviewing the specs (and taking in account the misused SHOULDs and those I think should be stronger, see previous messages), I believe that ALL of the remaining SHOULDs in the set are NOT relevant to conformance, but instead represent implementation guidance.

So, I propose we change the text above in p1 to:

""" An implementation is considered conformant if it complies with all of the MUST-level requirements associated with the roles it partakes in HTTP. Note that SHOULD-level requirements are relevant to conformance, but do not formally impact it; instead, they represent implementation guidance. """

Thoughts?

[mnot@…]

Proposal from list is to just remove the second sentence.

[fielding@…]

From [2259]:

(editorial) #476 : Remove odd sentence about SHOULD-level requirements that is inconsistent with RFC2119