Is this a relay of a question from the ISDF list to the IETF list? I don't seem to have the context of the conversation.
I gather that the question has something to do with the management of RFCs. It would be good to read the discussion at http://www.rfc-editor.org/ for what the RFC Editor thinks the RFC Series is.
As to the name, you need to understand both the origins and the history of the series: the series was originally an archive of notes among friends, and (per Steve Crocker, the guy who named them) was called "Request for Comments" as much as anything to downplay the concept of "we are now publishing Something Immutable and Really Important". That was in 1969. By the time I became associated with the IETF in 1989, there was a running joke that the letters really stood for "Requirements for Compliance", and today we often have a hard time convincing the ignorant that a published RFC - even when it opens with the words "this is not a standard" or "this is a bad idea that we are archiving so we don't forget why it is a bad idea" - is in fact not a standard. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2026.txt describes the current use of the RFC series, in terms of standards track specifications (about 1/3 of the RFCs), history, experiments, white papers on networking, poetry, and April Fool's jokes.
Fred
At 10:50 AM 1/8/2004, Wawa Ngenge wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Mark Smith wrote:
> On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 07:53:04 -0500 > Because that is not how they are updated. > The RFC faq would a place to seek your ansers.
The original question is : "Why do they not operate that way", if they are indeed REQUESTS? w
> http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcfaq.html > > Regards, > Mark. > _______________________________________________ > Isdf mailing list > Isdf@xxxxxxxx > http://www.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/isdf >
-- Wawa Ngenge (Ph.D.) Internet Society Trustee Emeritus WorldComputerExchange.org Director www.worldcomputerexchange.org/board_staff/ngenge-resume.htm ngenge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
_______________________________________________
This message was passed through ietf_censored@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, which is a sublist of ietf@xxxxxxxxx Not all messages are passed. Decisions on what to pass are made solely by IETF_CENSORED ML Administrator (ietf_admin@xxxxxxxx).