Re: MUST, SHOULD, ... in Capabilities Documents

["George Jones" <eludom@gmail.com>]

On 6/6/06, Ross Callon <rcallon@juniper.net> wrote:
> At 02:39 PM 6/6/2006 -0400, patrick cain wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >Maybe we can get George to craft a specific generic paragraph to be inserted
> >it into each document.

How about this, right below the obligitory RFC2119 text:

"NOTE: These documents describe capabilities, not requirements.
Capability definitoins do not assert MUST, SHOULD, MAY etc, and hence
do not use these keywords.   Capababilities are simple statments of
functionality
tha the device provides.   For example,

   Capability      The device MUST filter at line rate.  [a "requirement"]

becomes

   Capability      The device filters at line rate [a simple statement]

Operators must evaulate their own secrutiy needs to determine which
set of capabilities
defined in these documents are, for their situation, requirements."

This or similar could also be added to the framework.

I think you need the RFC2119 words' blob (it's part
> >of the boilerplate) but we could add another sentence or two clarifying what
> >they mean (or why they don't show up) in our docs.
> >And if every doc has the same sentence, nobody will complain.
>
> Well, that is what we did in Miscellaneous Capabilities, and I
> think that this was copied pretty much as is to the routing
> control plane capabilities document.

Except that it still uses MUST, etc. in the individual capability defintoins.

---George