What is an "RFC"?

The acronym "RFC" stands for "Request For Comments" (which could be translated as "Demande de commentaires" in French) and refers to a type of document used for collaborative work on independent projects of international scope.

Independent means that the project is not directly tied to a private company, but is supported by a set of individuals and public/private organizations.

In reality, even though the concept could be applied to many projects, RFCs were created and today document a major project: the Internet.

History

In 1969, Steve Crocker invented this system in order to keep track of unofficial notes during the development of the ARPANET network and wrote RFC 1, called "Host Software," which he typed on a typewriter and physically circulated to other people involved in the project.

The story goes that Crocker locked himself in the bathroom to write the first RFC in the middle of the night, so as not to disturb his roommates.

Starting in December 1969, RFCs were now shared on the first working version of ARPANET, and the famous "Working Groups" formed in a more official manner, bringing together researchers interested in the project as informal committees around a particular topic.

Since 1986, RFCs have been managed by a standardization body called the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), which brings together the Working Groups and handles the editing and publication of RFCs.

How it works

An RFC is published following the work of a Working Group or from the submission of an "internet draft" (a proposal by one or more experts in the field), which must go through a validation process.

An identifier is assigned, along with a subseries among:

• Best Current Practice (BCP)
• For Your Information (FYI)
• Standard

If, following comments from the Working Group, the RFC needs to be modified, then a new RFC is written (with a new identifier) and will be marked as making the original RFC obsolete.

An RFC will never be edited, as these are static documents.

RFCs must then be implemented by industry players who agree to follow the standards decided upon by the IETF.

Fun facts

• No. 1310 is the first RFC to document... RFCs.
• Jon Postel was the editor of a very large number of RFCs within the IETF. Upon his death in 1998, his eulogy was published in RFC 2468.
• RFC 920 is the first to list TLDs (domain extensions), and it includes only 6: .ARPA .GOV .EDU .COM .MIL .ORG
• Some RFCs are hoaxes, such as No.1149, which describes the network transmission protocol via carrier pigeon!

I hope this article has been useful to you, and see you soon on the blog.