Happy 40th Birthday, Internet RFCs

WayHomer was one of several readers to point out the 40th birthday of an important tool in the formation of the Internet, and a look back at it by the author of the first of many. "Stephen Crocker in the New York Times writes, 'Today is an important date in the history of the Internet: the 40th anniversary of what is known as the Request for Comments (RFC).' 'RFC1 — Host Software' was published 40 years ago today, establishing a framework for documenting how networking technologies and the Internet itself work. Distribution of this memo is unlimited."

Great article

[hedronist]

This article was a genuine joy to read. This is like reading about the invention of the airplane...written in the first person by one of the Wright brothers.

I particularly liked the description of his visit to Bangalore -- it goes to the heart of why we do open source.

"Distribution of this memo is unlimited."

[Ronald Dumsfeld]

That's pretty much the key to the whole thing; it may have started as to a group that perhaps reached into three figures, but they were on the right track.

Anybody can read the RFCs, and there are probably millions who have now (well, maybe not all of them). They are among the most non-intimidating technical/specification documents I've ever gone through.

There's one little collection [dns.net] I wish had been around when I first got network access. Sending emails was a mind-fuck when you had to piss about with bang paths.

Re:RFC 3514 saved the Internet

[Jurily]

It's great how we no longer have to fear malicious Internet traffic, now that the evil bit has been set on every such packet.

Since 99%+ of the traffic is either spam or torrent, we can safely set the evil bit on all traffic.

All hail the genius of the RFC process*

[idontgno]

As aptly summarized in 1992 by David Clark [wikipedia.org] at the 24th meeting of the IETF:

We reject: kings, presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.

*No, I'm not being ironic, sarcastic, or funny. Every now and again, something is worth of sincere and universal praise. This is one of them.

Re:RFC 3514 saved the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is a torrent evil?

Re:Great article

[ZachPruckowski]

True, RFCs are not universally supported, but it's at least a basis to say "this is what you should be doing" with some authority. Otherwise you've got all those minor incompatibility issues AND no way to tell who is right or wrong.