office-comment message

Subject: Public Comment

From: comment-form@oasis-open.org
To: office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org
Date: 20 Oct 2005 20:37:32 -0000

Comment from: dennis.hamilton@acm.org

Name: Dennis E. Hamilton
Title: System Architect
Organization: NuovoDoc
Regarding Specification: OpenDocument 1.0

Non-Normative Use of Should.

In section 1.2, it is stated clearly that the IETF RFC 2119 interpretations apply only when words like SHOULD appear fully capitalized and in bold face.

A search of the PDF reveals 13 occurences of SHOULD (including in SHOULD NOT) outside of section 1.2.

A search of the PDF reveals at least 182 
occurrences of "should" (including in "should 
not") and not identified as appealing to the RFC 
2119 interpretation.  This appears to be 
intentional in at least some cases.  (Cf. the 
fourth paragraph of section 1.5.)

How are these occurrences to be interpreted?

For OpenFormula, it is possible to work around 
the cases so far (such as in the description 
of the table:formula attribute on page 184), by 
using MUST as an OpenFormula-specific condition.

Is there some general guidance on how "should" 
and "should not" are to be construed when not 
expressed as "SHOULD" and "SHOULD NOT"?