ISSUE-414: Check usage of MUST & MAY in the paq
must-may-paq
Check usage of MUST & MAY in the paq
- State:
- CLOSED
- Product:
- Accessing and Querying Provenance
- Raised by:
- Paul Groth
- Opened on:
- 2012-06-20
- Description:
- Check that all must in mays are compatible with the IETF definition.
e.g. Web applications may access provenance information in the same way as any resource on the Web, by dereferencing its URI. Thus, any provenance information may be associated with a provenance-URI, and may be accessed by dereferencing that URI using web mechanisms.
Just check that this is right. - Related Actions Items:
- No related actions
- Related emails:
- PROV-AQ issues pending review (from graham.klyne@zoo.ox.ac.uk on 2013-03-11)
- PROV-AQ, ISSUE 601 and general status update (from GK@ninebynine.org on 2012-11-26)
- PROV-ISSUE-414 (must-may-paq): Check usage of MUST & MAY in the paq [Accessing and Querying Provenance] (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2012-06-20)
Related notes:
IETF usage specifically relates to capitalized MAY, MUST, etc. Normal-case may, must are not covered by the definition, and retain their normal decsriptive meanings.
So I think your issue really comes down to this: are there lowercase may, must, etc that should be uppercased to invoke the normative semantics? If you think there are any such specific instances, please let me know.
I tend to a view that MUST, MAY, etc are over-used in specifications. I think they should be used sparingly to highlight specific normative conformance-related statements. A reasonable view would be that *every* use of MUST, SHOULD, MAY, etc should have its own documented CR exit criterion - that might focus the mind on deciding which ones really need to be normative, as opposed to usefully descriptive. YMMV.
Need to go through and check before publication
Graham Klyne, 14 Nov 2012, 22:44:52I've been through the documenbt recently, and didn't notice any uses that obviously need changing. Propose to close this without further change, but will respond to any partiocular cases brought to my attention.
Graham Klyne, 7 Mar 2013, 15:19:15Display change log
