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3.7 KiB
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29 lines
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>RFC</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../R.html" title="R"/><link rel="previous" href="return-from-the-dead.html" title="return from the dead"/><link rel="next" href="RFE.html" title="RFE"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">RFC</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="return-from-the-dead.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">R</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="RFE.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="RFC"/><dt xmlns="" id="RFC"><b>RFC</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/R·F·C/</span>, <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [Request For Comment] One of a long-established series of
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numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely followed by
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commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix communities.
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Perhaps the single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet
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mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by
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technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the
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Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution
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such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted
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as standards.</p><p>The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact
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standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important
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advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of ANSI
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or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a
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flourishing tradition of ‘joke’ RFCs; usually at least one a
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year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known joke RFCs have
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included 527 (“<span class="quote">ARPAWOCKY</span>”, R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973),
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748 (“<span class="quote">Telnet Randomly-Lose Option</span>”, Mark R. Crispin; 1 April
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1978), and 1149 (“<span class="quote">A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on
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Avian Carriers</span>”, D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990). The first was
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a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the TCP-IP documentation
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style, and the third a deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese,
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describing protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier
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pigeon (since actually implemented; see Appendix A). See also
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<a href="../I/Infinite-Monkey-Theorem.html"><i class="glossterm">Infinite-Monkey Theorem</i></a>.</p><p>The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work — they
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frequently manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in
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informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that
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often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to
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truly worldwide proportions.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="return-from-the-dead.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../R.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="RFE.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">return from the dead </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> RFE</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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