[ih] History from 1960s to 2025

[Matt Mathis]

Another important (and recurrent) part of the RFC and I-D stories, were the
machinations to try to discourage^H^H^H prevent vendors from shipping "I-D
Compatible" products.

Again, I don't remember the details, but there was a WG that
was informed (by Jon?) that their protocol needed a version field.   Since
several WG members were already shipping products, they added the version
to the end of the header.   When the RFC finally came out, the RFC editor
(Jon) had reordered the header fields to put the version first, as it must
be to be useful.   The WG was really pissed, but Jon made his point.

The official I-D expirations were part of I-D vs RFC story.  I recall that
precise language changed from time to time in the early years.   I think
the ultimate solution was adding the required citation language "only cited
as work-in-progress" to the I-D boilerplate.

Thanks,
--MM--
Evil is defined by mortals who think they know "The Truth" and use force to
apply it to others.
-------------------------------------------
Matt Mathis  (Email is best)
Home & mobile: 412-654-7529 please leave a message if you must call.



On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 5:55 PM Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> On 26-Dec-25 12:06, Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 25/12/2025 23:59, Craig Partridge via Internet-history wrote:
> >>> 2. Is it true to say that the de facto standard tool for producing
> early
> >>> I-Ds was nroff?
> >>>
> >> Yes, Jon Postel had an nroff to RFC format script which we all used.
> >
> >
> https://github.com/oberstet/scratchbox/blob/master/docs/rfc/3-nroff.template
> ?
>
> Try this to get you back to 1991:
>
> https://www.potaroo.net/ietf/old-ids/2-nroff.template
>
> I'd forgotten all about pg and fix.sh, but I see that I still have them
> hiding in a folder called OldUnixStuff/bin.
>
>      Brian
>
>      Brian
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