RIS format question regarding abstracts

According to the RIS specs, the abstract should go to the N2 field.  The AB field is the same as N1 and just means “notes”.  Now, this is a very odd way to get an abstract into the RIS file.  Has anyone a rationale for it?

Anyway, some significant applications (bibutils for example, and everything building on it) use AB for the abstract.  Do you think it’s sensible to change the specs so that AB is equal to N2 rather than to N1?

How do other applications handle the AB field in import and export?

The name “AB” sounds like, long ago, this was indeed the field for the abstract. However, the RIS specification clearly states that the abstract is in N2, and only notes are in AB/N1. Any application that maps abstracts to N1 got it wrong. I would strongly suggest not to change the RIS specification, but rather to add a clarifying comment.