What is normative?

[John C Klensin]

--On Thursday, 09 October, 2008 15:07 +0200 Mark Davis
<mark at macchiato.com> wrote:

>> Rationale and into either Protocol or a separate document, we
>> are first going to have to agree about what material falls
>> into the "normative" category.  I believe that the analysis
>> above suggests quite strongly that it is not a simple
>> decision with an obvious answer.
> 
> If it is not clear what is and isn't normative, we have a huge
> problem on our hands! If we can't decide, there is no way on
> earth ordinary users will be able to know what is and is not
> required for implementation, representing a severe
> interoperability problem.

Mark,

I will have more to say about this, and probably some new
documents, after Vint declares the comment period closed and
announces an evaluation on it (I think his note to Martin
predicts where this is going, but I expect him to think for
himself).

However, in the hope of clearing up what is rapidly becoming a
large and smelly red herring...

With one exception, I do not believe there is _any_ disagreement
about what is or is not substantively normative.  That exception
relates to whether the description of differences between
IDNA2003 and IDNA2008 is formally normative or not.  I have
already explained why, from my point of view, it must not be...
a position what ought to be strongly aligned with the position
of those who believe that we should just tell implementers of
IDNA2008 what do so.

What we do have is some disagreement about category-labels.   If
we reference a document as "Rationale", we get some comments
about material that should not be considered as rationale
material, perhaps from people who haven't actually read that
document (or perhaps not).  (Lest that comment be misunderstood,
it is clear to me that you have read the document and read it
carefully... it is one or two others about whom I've got
doubts.)   But, similarly, once we start talking about material
to be moved to some other document (existing already or not)
then we are really talking about collections of material, not
whether the material is narrowly normative or not.  A narrow
definition of what is normative _for purposes of determining
what should be in which document_ produces different document
content than a definition of what belongs together in a document
whose audience is protocol implementers, even though one would
expect the latter definition to include all of the
narrowly-normative material.  And, for that latter category,
there is ample range for disagreement without getting anywhere
near the "huge problem" to which you refer.

I would encourage others who have opinions on what _specific_
material should be moved out of the document that is informally
known as "Rationale" and into something else to say so, and to
be clear (if possible) as to whether they consider the material
they recommend moving to be narrowly "normative" or just
something that logically belongs in some other document.  For
example, one might believe that the material on differences
between IDNA2003 and IDNA2008 belongs in an appendix to Protocol
(and hence should be out of Rationale) without believing that
material to be normative.

     john