ISI's relationship with the RFC Editor ended on Wednesday, June 30, 2010. That relationship began on March 21, 1977 when Jon Postel joined the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and brought the RFC Editor responsibilities with him. Today, there are more than 5,900 RFCs, of which, almost 5,000 have been processed, edited, and published at ISI. This reflects a tremendous commitment on the part of ISI. Just as the Internet�s history is marked by individuals stepping forward to take the lead, so too organizations such as ISI have shown leadership and dedication beyond what anyone had the right to expect. The RFC series demands a commitment to quality and consistency; to process and transparency. Open standards and open access to standards are cornerstones of the Internet�s success. And so the importance of the RFC Editor role cannot be overstated. For more than 30 years, USC�s Information Sciences Institute provided the bedrock of organizational support the global Internet community needed. Throughout ISI�s stewardship, the RFC Editor continuously improved the RFC editorial processes, provided education and support to the IETF community, and ensured the RFC archive was fully, freely available to people from all over the world. It�s hard to imagine a more humble-looking document series than the RFCs, with their monospaced ACII text, austere formatting, and hard coded headers and footers. Nor could you call the RFCs famous. As Jon himself once said, �being in the limelight has its minuses�. Yet the impact of this series has been, and continues to be earth shattering. The IETF, the IAB, the IRTF and the Independent Submissions' work is documented in the RFCs. All of us are joined by a common belief that the Internet can improve the quality of life for people everywhere. For us, the RFCs are our holy books. Our folk lore. Our history. And our guides. Vint Cerf once called them � in an RFC of course � �the Great Conversation�. �Hiding in the history of the RFCs,� he said, �is the history of human institutions for achieving cooperative work.� So then, the RFC Editor is our scribe, our diarist, historian, and our keeper of standards (in all senses of that phrase). For more than three decades, ISI and its dedicated staff - including Jon Postel, Joyce Reynolds and Bob Braden - performed that role and for that we are all deeply in your debt. Russ Housley, IETF Chair Olaf Kolkman, IAB Chair Aaron Falk, IRTF Chair Lynn St.Amour, President/CEO, Internet Society
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