use of 2119 keywords (Was: short names (descriptors) proposal)

["Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org>]

In this discussion, I noticed two problems (in both my original
proposal and various suggestions made).

First, it should be noted that there is a significant difference
between a keyword, always written in uppercase, (e.g. MUST, SHOULD,
MAY) and a word (must, should, may) written in lowercase.  Only
keywords have RFC 2119 meaning.

Second, in the "core" technical specification, we should only
use keywords when stating an implementation requirement.  One
test of the use is to reword the sentence in the form:
	Implementations MUST/SHOULD/MAY ...

If you find the keyword applies not to an implementation but
to a user, deployment, a future specification, a registration,
a standards body, etc., then likely the use of the keyword is
inappropriate.

Lastly, keywords are to be used sparingly as discussed in RFC
2119.

I will offer a new wording shortly.

Kurt