Is RFC5322 a 'protocol'?

New year.  New time for abstract queries...


In spite of its title, I believe the *22 series of documents might 
qualify as a protocol, rather than "merely" as an object format 
specification.

The difference I see between a format and a protocol is that the latter 
specifies actions to take.

 From RFC 5322's basic specification, the parts of the document that can 
be argued to specify protocol is, therefore:

      Originator fields (From:/Sender:/Reply-to:)

Possibly also: <return>.

I suspect some of the additional fields that have been specified in 
separate documents similarly contain directions about actions to be taken.


Thoughts?


d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
_______________________________________________
ietf-822 mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-822