On Wednesday 16 February 2011 05:19 PM, Abhijit Menon-Sen wrote:
I don't see the relevance to this discussion, so I'll digress to say
that it always annoys me when Postel is quoted to justify accepting all
sorts of malformed nonsense in protocol implementations. The idea is to
be accepting where there is some ambiguity or different interpretations
of the standard, not to accept things which are outright invalid.

Postel's Law/Maxim/Prescription/Whathaveyou has often been quoted for things other than protocol implementation, including netiquette and as a general good principle of liberalism:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1855

Abstract

   This document provides a minimum set of guidelines for Network
   Etiquette (Netiquette) which organizations may take and adapt for
   their own use.  As such, it is deliberately written in a bulleted
   format to make adaptation easier and to make any particular item easy
   (or easier) to find.  It also functions as a minimum set of
   guidelines for individuals, both users and administrators.  This memo
   is the product of the Responsible Use of the Network (RUN) Working
   Group of the IETF.


    - A good rule of thumb:  Be conservative in what you send and
      liberal in what you receive.  You should not send heated messages
      (we call these "flames") even if you are provoked.  On the other
      hand, you shouldn't be surprised if you get flamed and it's
      prudent not to respond to flames.

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