--On March 11, 2009 4:08:04 PM -0400 Joe Abley <jabley(_at_)hopcount(_dot_)ca>
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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