30 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
30 lines
1.8 KiB
Plaintext
RFC
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/RFC/ , n. [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. The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven,
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after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups
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has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process
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typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the
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existence of a 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 included
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527 ( ARPAWOCKY , R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973), 748 ( Telnet
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Randomly-Lose Option , Mark R. Crispin; 1 April 1978), and 1149 ( A Standard
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for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers , D. Waitzman, BBN
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STC; 1 April 1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a
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parody of the TCP-IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering
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of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting
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Internet data packets by carrier pigeon (since actually implemented; see
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Appendix A). See also Infinite-Monkey Theorem. The RFCs are most remarkable
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for how well they work they frequently manage to have neither the
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ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the
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committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and
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they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions.
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