CAP-12-e: Changing REQUEST-STATUS

In looking up something related to CALSCALE I noticed that CAP-12-e makes 
an unmentioned change to iCalendars REQUEST-STATUS property.  This change 
is NOT good NOR is it necessary.

iCalendar defines REQUEST-STATUS as:

   Format Definition: The property is defined by the following notation:

     rstatus    = "REQUEST-STATUS" rstatparam ":"
                  statcode ";" statdesc [";" extdata]

CAP-12-e proposes changing it to:

   rstatus  = "REQUEST-STATUS" rstatparam ":"
              statcode ";" *(statdesc ) ";" *(extdata)

This makes statdesc optional now PLUS it makes statdesc and extdata both 
multi valued.  This is a non-backwards compatible change for no apparent 
reason that I can find in a quick archive search on the topic.  These 
changes to REQUEST-STATUS seem to serve no pratical purpose (What good are 
2 "status descriptions" values for 1 REQUEST-STATUS?).  Plus they change 
the legal possible values the property can have which may make iCalendar 
parsers treat the property as incorrectly formed and thus 'invalid'.

"Extending" REQUEST-STATUS for CAP is to be expected but making a 
fundamental change to the property is NOT.

Bruce
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Bruce Kahn                                INet: 
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