Subject: Re: RFC conformance:

From: "John Stracke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:49:39 -0400

>Is there any this kind of document for RFCs.

No.

>If an internet device supplier
>claim their
>implementaion conform to RFCXXXX. What should subscriber do to verify the
>conformance.

Depends on the RFC.  Some WGs run interoperability tests, and those 
results may be available publicly (although, in at least some cases, 
they're kept secret, so that engineers can come do their testing without 
marketing getting worried).  Or there may be a test suite publicly 
available somewhere.

Failing that, you're on your own.  If it's a widely implemented RFC, you 
may be able to test it against other implementations.

/=================================================================\
|John Stracke                    |Principal Engineer              |
[email-masked]   |Incentive Systems, Inc.         |
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own.         |
|=================================================================|
|Among animals, it's eat or be eaten. Among people, it's define or|
|be defined.                                                      |
\=================================================================/

---

From: "Jiwoong Lee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 09:24:23 +0900

Hi, I have a question in my mind.

http://www.rfc-editor.org/errata.html provides errata pages. It deals with
simple editorial typo in RFCs as well as specific requirements and design
issues.

Someone may have to state one's implementation as

	- RFC 3180 compatible with errata version Mon, 22 Oct 2001

instead simply

	- RFC 3180 compatible.

Hm.. I think I see RFC numbering does not scale well. : )
Could you please share your thought on this errata series of RFCs ?

Jiwoong

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of John
Stracke
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 5:50 AM
To: [email-masked]

No.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 10:40:24 -0400

> Could you please share your thought on this errata series of RFCs ?

After having actually *checked* the page, and found mostly typographical
errata, and not many true show-stopper protocol errata, I don't think
that there is any real requirement to have to state "errata version"
when claiming RFC compatibility.

A *MUCH MUCH* bigger issue is when a product says "Supports RFCnnnn",
but only implements the MUST/MUST NOT level of requirements, and does
totally gratuitously stupid things with the "SHOULD/MAY" level items.
If you're looking for something for your engineers and tech writers to
do, rather than worry about the errata, have them make a list of all
those places where they do something other than the SHOULD(NOT), and
justify why they do so, and then if they are still bored, have them
do the same for the MAY items.

Of course, I'm just biased - I've had more operational headaches from
software that doesn't do a SHOULD right than I've ever had from
anything in those errata....

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech