Friends, When did we in the IETF first begin to view our standards track RFCs to be normative? Specifically, when I first became associated with you all in 1992, the RFCs of most IETF standards were incomplete and the reference implementations (i.e., running code) were what was considered to be normative. At a certain point (very late 90s??) the IETF began to reference the text of its standards track RFCs as if the RFC texts themselves were normative (e.g., in an OSI or ITU-like manner). When did that transition occur? Was there a specific event that marked that transition (e.g., a POISED WG)?? Did we formally document this evolution somewhere? Do we currently consider today the reference implementations to be more (or less??) normative than the RFC texts themselves? Thanks! --Eric _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf