[W/K] :: Request For Comments

  Request For Comments
       
           (RFC) One of a series, begun in 1969, of numbered
          Internet informational documents and standards widely
          followed by commercial software and freeware in the
          Internet and Unix communities.  Few RFCs are standards but
          all Internet standards are recorded in RFCs.  Perhaps the
          single most influential RFC has been RFC 822, the Internet
          electronic mail format standard.
       
          The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical
          experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the
          Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an
          institution such as ANSI.  For this reason, they remain
          known as RFCs even once adopted as standards.
       
          The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven,
          after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small
          working groups has important advantages over the more formal,
          committee-driven process typical of ANSI or ISO.
       
          Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a
          flourishing tradition of "joke" RFCs; usually at least one a
          year is published, usually on April 1st.  Well-known joke RFCs
          have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June
          1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1
          April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP
          Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April
          1990).  The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a
          parody of the TCP/IP documentation style, and the third a
          deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing
          protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier
          pigeon.
       
          The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they
          manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife
          in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated
          misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and they
          define a network that has grown to truly worldwide
          proportions.
       
          http://www.rfc.net/).html">rfc.net (http://www.rfc.net/).
          W3
          (http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/Archives/RFC_sites.html).
          ftp://nic.ja.net/pub/newsfiles/JIPS/rfc).html">JANET UK FTP (ftp://nic.ja.net/pub/newsfiles/JIPS/rfc).
          ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/).html">Imperial College, UK FTP (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/).
          http://www.nexor.com/public/rfc/index/rfc.html).html">Nexor UK (http://www.nexor.com/public/rfc/index/rfc.html).
          Ohio State U
          (http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html).
       
          See also For Your Information, STD.
       
          (1997-11-10)