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Request for Comments, one of many
numbered documents outlining specifications for proposed internet standards.
Unlike proposals issued by traditional standards bodies such as ansi (American
National Standards Institute) and the iso (international Standards
Organisation), rfcs are generally the work of people or groups
working independently. Because of the way it is administered, the rfc
approach allows good ideas to be reviewed by the whole internet community
rather than by a select few committee members.
Most of the
internet's most widely used standards and protocols have emerged from
the rfc process, including ip, http, urls and the e-mail
format standard (a full list is maintained by the ietf). Some are
rather gnomic (see rfc 124, for example), but others are more
expensive; a good example is rfc 1118, also known as the Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Internet. Unwary researchers have occasionally been caught out
by documents such as rfc 2324, which describes htcpcp 1.0, a
way of controlling coffee post across internet connections. It is, of
course, dated April1st 1998. |
