Subject: RFC2616bis question: is the reference to RFC1123 normative?

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2006 11:41:41 +0100

Hi,

I'm currently going through all the references in RFC2616, trying to 
decide whether they are normative or informative (a distinction that 
wasn't made when RFC2616 was published, but which is required nowadays).

The reference to RFC1123 ("Requirements for Internet Hosts -- 
Communication Layers") is a case where I find myself disagreeing with 
the classification made by Jim Gettys in draft-gettys-http-v11-spec-rev-00.

RFC2616 cites RFC1123 for

(1) the definition of the rfc1123-date format, and

(2) the definition of "mailbox"; as used in the "From" header.

For (1), it's IMHO just an informative reference, as RFC2616 really uses 
  only a subset of the RFC1123 format, and has it's own ABNF definition 
for it.

For (2), RFC2616bis should cite RFC2822, Section 3.4 instead.

Feedback appreciated.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:11:23 +0000

Julian Reschke wrote:

> For (1), it's IMHO just an informative reference, as RFC2616 really 
> uses  only a subset of the RFC1123 format, and has it's own ABNF 
> definition for it.
>

This seems correct.