And since we are tripping back through memory lane, Jon Postel and I co-authored RFC 980 which tells you how to order protocol documents, including the collections we made at SRI. Not sure I remember the price for these books, but to quote from the RFC itself: "For hardcopy distribution from the NIC there is a charge of $5 for each RFC that is less than 100 pages, and $10 for each RFC that is 100 pages or more to cover the cost of postage and handling (check, money order, or purchase order accepted)." We had a special line printer for this purpose and a machine called a "burster", something I have not seen or heard about in about 25 years. Time flies when you're having fun and stuck with ASCII documents :-) Ole Ole J. Jacobsen Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal Cisco Systems Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628 E-mail: ole@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj Skype: organdemo On Mon, 9 May 2011, John C Klensin wrote: > > > --On Sunday, May 08, 2011 15:06 -0700 Bob Braden > <braden@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > I just discovered an astonishing example of misinformation, > > shall we say, in the IEEE electric power community. There is > > an IEEE standards document C37.118, entitled (you don't care) > > "IEEE Standard for Synchrophasors for Power Systems > > C37-118(TM)-2005", which is currently of great importance for > > the instrumentation of the national power grid. I just noticed > > that it references RFC 793, and for curiosity looked to see > > how it was referenced. I found: > > > > [B8] RFC 793-1981,Transmission Control Protocol DARPA > > Internet Program Protocol Specification.[12] > >... > > Now, it has always been IETF's (and even before there was an > > IETF, Jon Postel's) policy to allow people to sell RFCs. What > > astonishes me is that clever people in the IEEE don't know > > RFCs are available free online. I guess RFCs remain so > > counter-cultural that industrial types don't get it. I wonder > > how many other IEEE standards contain similar RFC-for-pay > > references.. > > Bob, > > What you presumably remember, but others reading this may not, > was just how many comments Jon made about the impossibility of > preventing fools from throwing their money away. And, of > course, it is in the interest of Global Engineering Documents > --which, in the era in which few folks had direct access to the > Internet was one of the better sources for miscellaneous > technical standards documents-- to let people continue to > believe that they are a convenient and standard (sic) source. > > > > --On Sunday, May 08, 2011 21:26 -0400 "John R. Levine" > <johnl@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >... > > This isn't an enormous project, but it requires figuring out > > which online libraries are worth getting into, making the > > necessary arrangements with them (which may or may not involve > > money), a batch process to load in all the existing RFCs, and > > arrange with the production house to ensure that each new RFC > > gets listed as it's published. Most of these systems include > > abstracts and forward and backward references, which will > > doubtless require some debugging to make them work reliably. > > > > Like I said, it's a good project for the new RFC series > > editor. It should be a lot easier than deciding how to put > > Chinese names into RFCs. > > +1 > > I do note, however, that RFCs appear to be listed in ACM's Guide > to Computing Literature (essentially part of the ACM Digital > Library at this stage). Putting "Transmission Control Protocol" > into the search mechanism turns up RFC 793 in a hurry. And, > behold, they have full text available and retrieving it works > without any charges other than the access fees for the Digital > Library itself. "RFC Editor" is even on their list of > publishers for search purposes. > > The problem is that the titles they index do not contain the RFC > numbers, so looking up "RFC793" or "RFC 793". That is not a > decision to avoid indexing the series (which would require the > process John outlines to reverse) but a bug. I have filed a > bug report as Digital Library feedback. > > john > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf