Re: [office] Re: [office-metadata] Suggested Changes on the Metadataproposal

[Lars Oppermann <Lars.Oppermann@Sun.COM>]

I'll try to give an example from the HTTP spec: 
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html

In 14.15 Content-MD5 it is stated that servers MAY generate the 
Content-MD5 header field. (and that proxies obviously MUST NOT generate 
it). It further states that "[a]ny recipient of the entity- body, 
including gateways and proxies, MAY check that the digest value in this 
header field matches that of the entity-body as received."

Consequently the client is not under any obligation to do anything with 
this field. Whether it emits a warning if the check fails or whether it 
implements such a check at all is up to the discretion of the client's 
implementor.

Thus, as Rob already stated, the specification informs the client 
implementor that a conforming server might send such a header. Whether 
he decides to act upon the information contained in the header has no 
impact on the actual conformance of that implementation.

/Lars

marbux wrote:
> 
> 
> On 7/1/07, *robert_weir@us.ibm.com <mailto:robert_weir@us.ibm.com>* 
> <robert_weir@us.ibm.com <mailto:robert_weir@us.ibm.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     I think you're reading too much into the IETF's definition of MAY.
>      It explicitly says that a vendor is permitted to omit the item,
>     though it must accommodate itself and degrade functionality as
>     necessary.  What is not permitted is that the application utterly
>     crash when presented with an item it does not understand.   At least
>     that is the way it works for the IETF standards I'm familiar with. 
> 
> 
> We live in a world of ambiguities. :-) I can't testify to customary 
> practice, but what you describe is hard to square with the specific 
> language of the definition. E.g., it's hard for me to equate "not 
> crashing" with "interoperate."
>  


-- 
Sun Microsystems                Lars Oppermann <lars.oppermann@sun.com>
Nagelsweg 55                    Software Engineer
20097 Hamburg, Germany          Phone: +49 40 23646 959
http://www.sun.com/             Fax:   +49 40 23646 550