[ih] theory and practice of RFCs?

[Alex McKenzie]

Miles,

The RFCs were truly Requests for Comments.  When the Network Working Group first specified a "Host to Host Protocol" it was deliberately not circulated as an RFC by Steve Crocker (its author) because it was intended as a _specification_, not as a request for comments.  The first revision of the spec (I was the editor) was also not issued as an RFC for the same reason (until last year, to make it part of the record).  If you had an idea, or a comment on someone else's idea, or any document that you thought should be brought to the attention of the community, you asked Steve Crocker, or later the Network Information Center (NIC), for an RFC number, put it at the top of your paper document, and sent it to the NIC for copying and distribution to the "technical liaison" list.  After FTP was running reliably the NIC used FTP for RFC distribution, and that was the beginning of formality (standard headers, character set, and page layout).  But it was still
 possible to submit an RFC without any review except for format in the early 1980's.  I don't know when the RFC series became as tightly controlled as it is now, but I know it was after RFC 905, published in April 1984.


Regards,
Alex McKenzie


________________________________
 From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>
To: "internet-history at postel.org" <internet-history at postel.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:52 PM
Subject: [ih] theory and practice of RFCs?
 
Hi Folks,

Something I've been wondering about lately - that I hope folks here might have some perspective on:

Early on, RFCs were what the acronym implies - requests for comments.  Today, they're much more like standards documents, with a formal process for review and distribution.

For those who were there at the very beginning - what was the general model and practice for requesting, receiving, and discussing comments?  How did that change over time?  If one wanted to pose an idea for a new protocol, and solicit feedback, how would you do it today?

Thanks!

Miles Fidelman

-- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra
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