Re: #1029: USEFOR 3.2.2 References: Should comments be a MUST NOT? (fwd)

[Frank Ellermann <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bruce Lilly wrote:

> the only issue appears to be that some UAs (no other
> software has need to parse a References field) are not
> compliant with the specifications

That's not exactly the point:

A few of these "UAs" can be Web interfaces trying to display
some sort of "threads" using (among others) the References.

Some of these broken UAs can mangle the References in wild and
wonderful ways causing more wonderful side effects with other
UAs, which can normally handle all syntactically well-formed
References.

> that isn't an interoperability problem of the sort described
> in BCP 14.

If one UA gets it wrong and that causes another UA to crash it
is only a SNAFU.  But if the crshing UA is a Web interface or
another piece of software running in unattended mode it's bad.

> s/cause interoperability problems/be misinterpreted by
> non-conforming parsers/ would be more accurate

IBTD, it's about conforming parsers confronted with the invalid
input caused by another non-conforming parser elsewhere.  If
what you said boils down to a "don't replace the SHOULD NOT
by a MUST NOT" I'd support it.
                               Bye, Frank