Just one bit here:
In many standards track documents several words are used to signify
the requirements in the specification. These words are often
capitalized, as shown below, but they do not have to be. This
document defines how these words are interpreted in IETF documents
when the words are capitalized and/or marked as <bcp14> in the
This appears to say (well, it does say) that "the words" are used to "signify"
the requirements and are not always capitalised when they do. It then says it
defines how they are interpreted when capitalised "and/or" marked with BCP14,
which implies that if I use lower case but reference BCP14 then the
interpretation provided by this document applies. The later attempt to
disclaim
definition of "normal English meanings" runs counter to these two statements.
It's more than "referencing" BCP 14: it's using specific XML markup to
mark them as BCP 14 key words. They will be rendered in all caps in
the generated plain text, PDF, and HTML.
OK, and a second bit:
There *is* a problem that this is fixing: we (collectively) spend a
lot of time messing with this -- discussing, in document after
document, whether lower-case versions matter, and what should be what.
This document is attempting to get rough-consensus answers so the
questions don't have to be re-argued over and over.
Barry