Postel's Law and the Three Ring Circus
canopic jug writes:
Software engineer, Alex Gaynor has made an analysis of Postel's law including a discussion of its shortcomings. Postel's Law, also known as the Robustness Principle, states "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept."
This is a key observation: if everyone followed Postel's Law, there would be no need for anyone to be liberal in what they accept, because everyone would be conservative in what they produce. But, because people are in fact not conservative in what they produce, consumers must be liberal in what they accept. In practice, this means there are asymmetric obligations: because we know that producers will not follow Postel's Law, consumers must follow it. Ecosystems that adhere to Postel's Law therefore experience a one way ratchet: consumers must accept more and more deviations from the specifications, and because consumers accept the deviations, producers are never forced (or incentivized) to themselves become stricter in following the specifications. Over time, deviance normalizes.
The conclusion that in practice accepting garbage leads to a race to the bottom.
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