It should be
stated at the outset that we are dealing with an extremely complicated system
and one that is even more complicated to describe. It would be treacherously easy
for the casual reader to dismiss the entire concept as impractically complicated
-- especially if he is unfamiliar with the ease with which logical transformations
can be performed in a time-shared digital apparatus. The
temptation to throw up one's hands and decide that it is all 'too complicated,'
or to say, 'It will require a mountain of equipment which we all know is unreliable,'
should be deferred until the fine print has been read.
-
Paul Baran, On
Distributed Communications, Volume I, 1964. |
Request
For Comments (RFC's)
documents were invented by Steve Crocker in 1969 to help record unofficial
notes on the development of the ARPANET. They have since become the official
record
for Internet specifications, protocols, procedures,
and
events.
Anyone
can submit a
document to be an
RFC, although in practice they are generated by the Internet
Engineering Task Force, and then reviewed by the IETF groups, various
experts,
and the RFC Editor before publication. An RFC is never updated, although it
may be superseded by later revisions. RFC
2026, The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3, provides
a good description of the Internet standards development process, and is updated
by RFC
3932, The IESG and RFC Editor Documents: Procedures. The following
subsections provide more information about RFC's: