Subject: [lemonade] FUTURERELEASE syntax problem

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:48:09 +0100

Hi Gregory, Gregory and everyone,

the futurerelease RFC contains a dangling production, so HOLDUNTIL is 
not well-defined. The syntax is of the date-time argument is not 
defined at this RFC, I can't find the same production name in any other 
RFC (I think I checked RFC[34]???.txt, or maybe all of them), and there 
is no example showing HOLDUNTIL usage either.

HOLDFOR has a strict and usable definition (and HOLDFOR 30-60 seconds is 
a very nice way to defang mail loops, if I may say so).

When I implemented HOLDFOR a few months ago, I sent both authors mail 
about the dangling production, and made HOLDUNTIL emit a 50x error.

I am terribly sorry to be the one to raise this issue.

Arnt

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From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:41:45 -0800 (PST)

> defined at this RFC,

The date-time production comes from RFC 3339, section 5.6, and there's a
reference to that effect. So this isn't a problem.

The issue here isn't the date-time prodution, but rather the
Internet-style-date-time-UTC production refrenced by:

    future-release-date-time = Internet-style-date-time-UTC

The fix is quite simple:

    future-release-date-time = date-time

This can easily be addressed with an erratum.

> I can't find the same production name in any other

The lack of examples is indeed unfortunate. It should be noted and addressed
in any future revision.

> about the dangling production, and made HOLDUNTIL emit a 50x error.

That seems ... excessive. Yes, the production is broken and there are no
examples, but the intent here is quite clear, espectially if you go back and
look at -03 of the  I-D this came from:

    http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-vaudreuil-futuredelivery-03

In that version it clearly states that the format of
Internet-style-date-time-UTC comes from RFC 3339. The problem is simply that
the production name didn't match the production name used in RFC 3339, and
whoever did the find-and-replace to change Internet-style-date-time-UTC to
date-time missed a spot.

				Ned

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From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:15:06 +0100

> Internet-style-date-time-UTC production refrenced by:

Right. (I didn't say date-time production, I said the date-time argument.)

> This can easily be addressed with an erratum.

I'm happy if everyone agrees that this the intended syntax.

> That seems ... excessive.

(Well, I didn't release it so far, so...)

> Yes, the production is broken and there are no examples, but the 
> intent here is quite clear, espectially if you go back and look at 
> -03 of the I-D this came from:

That's the kind of clarity I like when there's an erratum spelling it 
out, but not when I'm making educated guesses on my own.

Arnt