Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the here-is-our-history dept.
Armin writes "Thirty years ago today, the first Request for Comments document, RFC 1, was published at UCLA.
RFC 2555
contains history and reflections on the Request for Comments (RFC) document
series, and the people who made it possible, on its 30th anniversary."
Thanks again Jon.
27 comments
Mirror
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I can't imagine it's not anywhere else, but for those of you too lazy, you can grab it here.
Thanks where thanks are due
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
> RFC 2555 contains history and reflections > on the Request for Comments (RFC) document > series, and the people who made it possible, > on its 30th anniversary
Yes. I too would like to thank Bill Gates for making all this possible. (Or is it Al Gore?)
April Fools RFCs were funny!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I only had a moment to look through some of the RFCs, but I thought the April 1, 1991 RFC was very funny. It detailled an utra low speed, highly redundant protocol to the military. Great stuff!
Slashdotted?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
That's the FTP server full. Where is this mirrored?
the ugly open truth of the internet
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
seems to me like alotta business/govt/power type folks are talking about 'technology' 'economic growth' 'big business' and 'the internet' all in the same breath.... but it also seems odd that alot of these types are firm believers in closed intellectual property, strong secretive patents on algorithms, proprietary technology, and other ideas and behaviors that are mutually exclusive with open standards. do these people even understand what an RFC is? do they understand how the internet was built? if you say 'were gonna build the next ineternet' but then you support proprietary secretive technology, seems to me its not gonna happen because the internet is at its essence about open widely available and implemented standards. What am i missing here?
Here's an alternate URL at ISI for RFC 2555: A HREF= "http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc/files /rfc2555.txt"> http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc/files/ rfc2555.txt
The first RFCs were in paper, circulated as letters, so some of the earliest ones might not have been electrified yet. You might have not seen RFC 1 for several reasons:
It was written in a lavatory and as such it should not be displayed to the public or
the local RFC collection doesn't carry it. (Yes, I have seen a copy somewhere).
I gather it's because no machineable copies exist of some of them. I understand that there's a project to collect soft copy and re-scan it.
This seems like a good time to call attention to my own contribution to the genre, RFC 2100, "The Naming of Hosts"... from 1 April 97, and invite those who enjoy it to go vote in the contest Rob posted about last week.
I think it's kinda funny that UCLA touts itself as "the birthplace of the internet," and yet it doesn't let its students run Linux or any internet-based network services on its dorm network. Check out the URL above if you're interested in this whole deal.
This is discussed in RFC2555 (y'know, the topic of this whole discussion):
We did, however, start to put online some of the early RFCs, including RFC 1. We weren't sure whether we were going to try to make them look as close to the typewritten originals as possible, or to make a few adjustments and format them according to the latest RFC style. Those of you who still have your copies of RFC 1 will note the concessions we made to NROFF the online version. The hand-drawn diagrams of the early RFCs also present interesting challenges for conversion into ASCII format.
I don't know why some are missing (perhaps it's because they currently only exist in their original medium - typewritten hardcopy), but you can find RFC 1 at ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1.txt.
-- Save Maine's economy: write stuff down.
All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
I just did a 'wc -l' on my local mirror of RFCs (admittedly, not complete) and counted nearly 3 million lines of text... I wonder how much shelfspace that would occupy when printed out. Any ideas?
Second thing: how many of us have had an RFC issued on the day they were born? By coincidence I just found out I am one of the lucky ones (no, I'm not going to tell you which one:) Suffice to say it's old) - Nemosoft
-- "Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
Concise listing of the more useful RFCs
by
nyet
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· Score: 1
They were working documents - people were supposed to look and scrutinise them for mistakes or inadequacies according to the original strategic plan.
Let me get Maudlin for a minute
by
Blitzkopf
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· Score: 1
According the book "Where Wizards stay up late" there was this group of students that met to specify how host computers should talk to IMPs (IMP is a early ARPANET router). They called their specifications "Request for Comments" because they did not feel that they had the authority to demand any special behavior. They always thought that at some Official Agency would eventually replace them and thank them for their efforts. But the replacements newer came.
I've often wondered if you could type "man man man" and get the man page for the man page on man.
I also like the RFC from 1972 I read about security: "The root password should not be the hostname backwards."
--
No sig.
Let me get Maudlin for a minute
by
_J_
·
· Score: 1
You have to wonder if the individuals involved in the formation of ARPANET way back when knew what was going to happen. Did they know that they were the prime movers in something magical. At this point in time most of us here do things which seem and are 'cool' and 'neat' to us but we can be pretty sure that it has been done before. What must it have been like to have been part of something truly original.
I think it's that sense of magic and discovery that pushes me into the realm of computers more and more.
To follow up the other posts here, yes RFC is a Request for comment. That is, as one who is authoring a number of them, you go through a whole draft stage (I've seen some in the double digit range of draft revisions) that get commented on. Then, at some stage that goes to be an experimental RFC. After more hacking (remember that running code rules in the world of the IETF) it may become informational or standard. At these stages the new RFC outdates the old RFC, again asking for more comments.
Rarely is a single RFC sufficient to generate a standard on. They are always updated by later ones. Even the old standards like Telnet has some thirty odd RFCs associated with it (last time I looked, including the April 1 variants).
--
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton
Slashdot Mirror
I can't imagine it's not anywhere else, but for those of you too lazy, you can grab it here.
> RFC 2555 contains history and reflections
> on the Request for Comments (RFC) document
> series, and the people who made it possible,
> on its 30th anniversary
Yes. I too would like to thank Bill Gates for
making all this possible. (Or is it Al Gore?)
I only had a moment to look through some of the RFCs, but I thought the April 1, 1991 RFC was very funny. It detailled an utra low speed, highly redundant protocol to the military. Great stuff!
That's the FTP server full. Where is this mirrored?
seems to me like alotta business/govt/power type folks
are talking about 'technology' 'economic growth'
'big business' and 'the internet' all in the same breath....
but it also seems odd that alot of these types
are firm believers in closed intellectual property,
strong secretive patents on algorithms, proprietary technology,
and other ideas and behaviors that are mutually exclusive with
open standards. do these people even understand what an RFC is? do they understand
how the internet was built? if you say 'were gonna build the next ineternet' but then you support proprietary secretive technology, seems to me its not gonna happen because the internet is at its essence about open widely available and implemented standards.
What am i missing here?
Tribute.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Here's an alternate URL at ISI for RFC 2555:s /rfc2555.txt"> / rfc2555.txt
A HREF=
"http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc/file
http://info.internet.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc/files
Oh, we might be interested to vote for our favorite RFC.
On Yahoo, I found a mirror locator in addition to mirrors at Ohio State, Switzerland, Internet FAQ Consortium, Japan, California, and the United Kingdom. Also noted in the discussion is a Slashdot reader mirror which could get Slashdotted.
I gather it's because no machineable copies exist of some of them. I understand that there's a project to collect soft copy and re-scan it.
This seems like a good time to call attention to my own contribution to the genre, RFC 2100, "The Naming of Hosts"... from 1 April 97, and invite those who enjoy it to go vote in the contest Rob posted about last week.
And to thank Jon.
Cheers,
I think it's kinda funny that UCLA touts itself as "the birthplace of the internet," and yet it doesn't let its students run Linux or any internet-based network services on its dorm network. Check out the URL above if you're interested in this whole deal.
RFC 1 is at ftp://ftp.ripe.net/rfc/rfc1.txt (among other places).
--
bgphints - internet routing news, hints and ti
Network Working Group Steve Crocker
Request for Comments: 1 UCLA
7 April 1969
--
bgphints - internet routing news, hints and ti
I have long been curious as to why not all of the RFCs are available. In particular, I would like to see RFC 1. Why is it nowhere to be found?
Help/insights, anyone?
We did, however, start to put online some of the early RFCs, including RFC 1. We weren't sure whether we were going to try to make them look as close to the typewritten originals as possible, or to make a few adjustments and format them according to the latest RFC style. Those of you who still have your copies of RFC 1 will note the concessions we made to NROFF the online version. The hand-drawn diagrams of the early RFCs also present interesting challenges for conversion into ASCII format.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I don't know why some are missing (perhaps it's because they currently only exist in their original medium - typewritten hardcopy), but you can find RFC 1 at ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1.txt.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
I just did a 'wc -l' on my local mirror of RFCs (admittedly, not complete) and counted nearly 3 million lines of text... I wonder how much shelfspace that would occupy when printed out. Any ideas?
Second thing: how many of us have had an RFC issued on the day they were born? By coincidence I just found out I am one of the lucky ones (no, I'm not going to tell you which one :) Suffice to say it's old) - Nemosoft
"Fix it? It has been disintegrated, by definition it cannot be fixed!" - Gru in Despicable Me.
I always have problems finding the RFCs I need.
Here's my list.
I think RFC1149 is probably the best of all time, published Apr1/1990 (April Fools Day)
Check it out - (at your nearest mirror - as the other sites appear to be quite full!)
No It was a request -
They were working documents - people were supposed to look and scrutinise them for mistakes or inadequacies according to the original strategic plan.
According the book "Where Wizards stay up late" there was this group of students that met to specify how host computers should talk to IMPs (IMP is a early ARPANET router). They called their specifications "Request for Comments" because they did not feel that they had the authority to demand any special behavior. They always thought that at some Official Agency would eventually replace them and thank them for their efforts. But the replacements newer came.
I've often wondered if you could type "man man man" and get the man page for the man page on man.
I also like the RFC from 1972 I read about security: "The root password should not be the hostname backwards."
No sig.
You have to wonder if the individuals involved in the formation of ARPANET way back when knew what was going to happen. Did they know that they were the prime movers in something magical. At this point in time most of us here do things which seem and are 'cool' and 'neat' to us but we can be pretty sure that it has been done before. What must it have been like to have been part of something truly original.
I think it's that sense of magic and discovery that pushes me into the realm of computers more and more.
Just a thought
J
Oh well, no point in steering now.
Umm, doesn't RFC stand for "Requirements For Conformance"?
Think about it... the RFC's aren't "requests" for anything -
they're specifications (requirements) to make your application conform
to a standard...
Who started the "request for comments" thing anyway?
To follow up the other posts here, yes RFC is a Request for comment. That is, as one who is authoring a number of them, you go through a whole draft stage (I've seen some in the double digit range of draft revisions) that get commented on. Then, at some stage that goes to be an experimental RFC. After more hacking (remember that running code rules in the world of the IETF) it may become informational or standard. At these stages the new RFC outdates the old RFC, again asking for more comments.
Rarely is a single RFC sufficient to generate a standard on. They are always updated by later ones. Even the old standards like Telnet has some thirty odd RFCs associated with it (last time I looked, including the April 1 variants).
Life is complete only for brief intervals in between toys or projects -- John Dalton