Dave Crocker <dcrocker(_at_)bbiw(_dot_)net> wrote:
It thas been suggested that a request to place email-arch on the standards
track should carry with it a specification of what constitutes
"interoperability" for the document.
...
Here's a simple candidate:
If a document has achieved a significant level of use as a normative
reference, it probably qualifies as being "interoperabille" by virtue of
being integrated into the technical community. Perhaps the best
non-protocol example of this is [RFC2119] Bradner, S., ?Key words for use
in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels?.
The obvious analogue would be "cited as a normative reference by at
least two standards-track RFCs." This has the advantage of being easily
measured.
I went so far to recommend more or less this approach for the ABNF
specification and even went so far as to generate a list of references and uses
of each of ABNF's "features". This was in effect rejected by the IESG, however,
in favor of documenting the existance of at least two ABNF validators.
I thought this was a poor decision at the time and still do. IMO what matters
about ABNF - and by extension any other document that provides definitional
tools for other specifications - is whether or not it is actually used by
mulitplle specifications to achieve bettter specification clarity and therefore
increase the chance of creating interoperable implementations. Whether or not
there happens to be a way to backstop the use of such a document with a
validation tool strikes me as largely irrelevant.
In the present case perhaps the inability to write a validation tool will
make this approach viable. However, given the past history I have my doubts.
Ned