On Thu, 12 May 2005, Mark wrote:
What I like about Wayne's new wording is that
keeps a firm NOT RECOMMENDED, yet allows other identities to
be used under the right conditions.
Without explicit approval of the record owner,
checking other identities against SPF version 1 records
is NOT RECOMMENDED
I clearly have to think some more on this new wording; but I partly feel
it may sound too legalese; as in: "you need a Sender-ID type of license to
use the records". Obviously, Wayne does not mean it that way.
I was the one who proposed the wording and can certainly confirm that it
was not meant to be taken as legal language (then again I seem to remember
small debate with Microsoft techs at the end of MARID where they suggested
that lawyers would not necessarily take the language in RFCs literally :)
But I wonder
how a lawyer would interpret "explicit approval of the record owner". Anne
P. Mitchell, are you still here? :) I do not want to sound too nit-picky;
but the last thing I want is for people outside the SPF community to
construe "explicit permission" as some sort of requirement for a licence
ala Sender-ID. That would suck. :)
Now for the real nit-pick. :) Semantically, what logically follows the
strongly worded "without explicit approval" is a MUST, or MUST NOT.
I would certainly not object to "MUST NOT, but I do ot think that
strong "explicit approval" is incompatible with "SHOULD NOT" either.
The former part of the sentence, "without explicit approval", you could
say, is writing checks the latter, "NOT RECOMMENDED", can't cash. :)
"consulting", as a suggestion also, IMHO, better matches the "NOT
RECOMMENDED"
I don't think 'consulting' is correct word for what is meant here as it
really does mean approval by record owner for use of record in other ways.
I is possible this could all be resolved by removing "explicit" from
the proposed wording, though personally I'd rather it stays in. But I'll
leave it to the Wayne and others on the list to decide and ultimately to
the SPF Council if it wants to take on this issue.
--
William Leibzon
Elan Networks
william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net