On Mar 23, 2005, at 1:57 PM, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
Is there a place where it is explained what "deprecate" means in the IETF context? Looking the word up in the dictionary won't help people who don't understand it...
I believe it is generally used as defined in RFC 1158:
3.1. Deprecated Objects
In order to better prepare implementors for future changes in the MIB, a new term "deprecated" may be used when describing an object. A deprecated object in the MIB is one which must be supported, but one which will most likely be removed from the next version of the MIB (e.g., MIB-III).
In other words, something that is deleted from a specification is something that someone might immediately re-use with different semantics. That is an interoperability nightmare. So when we remove something from a specification, we generally do so by saying "this is defined, but should not be used".
In this context, it would be that the usage would be explicitly recommended against, but the definition left in place in the form of an IANA reservation of the structure so that it would not be re-used. Things that understand it will understand it, and things that don't won't, but nobody gets confused.
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