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RE: Postel's Law Has No Exceptions

• To: Joshua Allen <joshuaa@m...>
• Subject: RE: Postel's Law Has No Exceptions
• From: Rich Salz <rsalz@d...>
• Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 01:26:35 -0400 (EDT)
• Cc: "xml-dev@l..." <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <4F4182C71C1FDD4BA0937A7EB7B8B4C10A568263@r...>

> If they are conservative in sending, why do they produce
> non-wellformed XML?  Certain WebDAV servers seem like a perfect example
> of blatant disregard for Postel's law to me.

Postel's dictum is in fact the problem here.  If implementation
A is liberal in what it accepts and implementation B is liberal
but in different places, then finding conformance bugs in A and
B can be difficult.  It can also lead to interop problems when
implementation C is brought into the picture, and has to "work
around" the two non-overlapping liberalities.

Credit Internet Old Boy Padlipsky for first explaining this.
        /r$

--
Rich Salz                  Chief Security Architect
DataPower Technology       http://www.datapower.com
XS40 XML Security Gateway  http://www.datapower.com/products/xs40.html
XML Security Overview      http://www.datapower.com/xmldev/xmlsecurity.html

• References:
  • RE: Postel's Law Has No Exceptions
    • From: "Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@m...>

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