--On March 11, 2009 4:08:04 PM -0400 Joe Abley <jabley@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The RFC series is an ongoing record of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.
I have to agree with this. The RFCs are a record of both success and failure. Yes over time we've found better ways to do things, and that is also where the RFCs stand. As a history book for the technical bedrock we all really on now. Almost every human relies on this experiment we call the Internet. The RFCs help to document how things are done, and how things WERE done. The stewardship of this information is not to be taken lightly. Having it available in one place and "on topic" as many might say is invaluable to anyone trying to develop an Internet based application, or doing research on the Internet itself. Yes, there are discussions and working groups and everything. But the RFCs are the Medical Journal and the peer reviewed information distilled from all of that and therefore each one embodies huge amounts of effort either on the part of an individual, a team of individuals, or a large group effort.
I personally feel that even "Informational" RFCs are invaluable, they do not define a standard, but instead clarify how something is (or was) used. The recent Syslog RFC (5424) mentioning the old BSD Syslog RFC (3164) is a great example. 3164 is informational in nature. 5424 obsoletes 3164 because it tries to actually propose a standard, whereas 3164 just identified what was out there in the wild, and documented it. It didn't try to tell anyone how to use syslog, just tried to make it known in a central place how it was being used. This would be VERY valuable to anyone trying to write a syslog daemon, even without it defining any sort of protocol.
The information in the RFCs is (in my mind) intended primarily to increase interoperability between Internet enabled applications. They do this by defining standards, by clarifying standards, by proposing standards, or simply by documenting observations of how things behave in the wild (whether or not those things are a standard). All of this is extremely valuable research and information. Having it in one place, and having it under the stewardship of an organization that desires to maintain it with that in mind is invaluable and necessary.
This organization must be atleast somewhat independent. It's therefore not appropriate for Google, or Yahoo!, or Microsoft to maintain these bodies of standards. Independent bodies must maintain them to ensure some level of fairness and public participation and to try to prevent tampering with the process (of recording and maintaining the archives and standards) and ensure integrity of the process.
Part of those underpinnings are standards, in the interests of interoperability. Other parts are records of the Internet's culture, of how people use the Internet, of good ideas that went nowhere and of bad ideas that were thrown away. Having all these things in a single collection of documents is good for archival, research and citation as well as being good for software development and engineering. The continuity of the ongoing effort benefits from this documentation. You suggest that the archival of mere "technical information" implies that the IETF is not "serious". I think that depends very much on your idea of what "serious" means.
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