As per Relevance of the word publication, we have this rfc below:
Network Working Group C.
Request for Comments: 1796
Category: Informational J.
S.
April 1995
Not All RFCs are
Status of this
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution
this memo is unlimited
This document discusses the relationship of the Request for
(RFCs) notes to Internet Standards
Not All RFCs Are
The "Request for Comments" (RFC) document series is the
publication channel for Internet standards documents and
publications of the IESG, IAB, and Internet community. From time
time, and about every six months in the last few years,
questions the rationality of publishing both Internet standards
informational documents as RFCs. The argument is generally that
introduces some confusion between "real standards" and "
publications".
It is a regrettably well spread misconception that publication as
RFC provides some level of recognition. It does not, or at least
any more than the publication in a regular journal. In fact,
RFC has a status, relative to its relation with the
standardization process: Informational, Experimental, or
Track (Proposed Standard, Draft Standard, Internet Standard),
Historic. This status is reproduced on the first page of the
itself, and is also documented in the periodic "Internet
Protocols Standards" RFC (STD 1). But this status is
omitted from quotes and references, which may feed the confusion
There are two important sources of information on the status of
Internet standards: they are summarized periodically in an
entitled "Internet Official Protocol Standards" and they
documented in the "STD" subseries. When a specification has
Huitema, Postel & Crocker [Page 1]
RFC 1796 Not All RFCs are Standards April 1995
adopted as an Internet Standard, it is given the additional
"STD xxxx", but it keeps its RFC number and its place in the
series
It is important to note that the relationship of STD numbers to
numbers is not one to one. STD numbers identify protocols,
numbers identify documents. Sometimes more than one document is
to specify a Standard protocol
In order to further increase the publicity of the
status, the IAB proposes the following actions
Use the STD number, rather than just the RFC numbers, in the
references between standard tracks documents
Utilize the "web" hypertext technology to publicize the state
the standardization process
More precisely, we propose to add to the current RFC repository
"html" version of the "STD-1" document, i.e., the list of
standards. We are considering the extension of this document to
describes actions in progress, i.e., standards track work at
"proposed" or "draft" stage
A Single
The IAB believes that the community benefitted significantly
having a single archival document series. Documents are easy to
and to retrieve, and file servers are easy to organize. This
been very important over the long term. Experience of the past
that subseries, or series of limited scope, tend to vanish from
network. And, there is no evidence that alternate document
would result in less confusion
Moreover, we believe that the presence of additional documents
not actually hurt the standardization process. The solution which
propose is to better publicize the "standard" status of
documents, which is made relatively easy by the advent of
hypertext technologies
Rather Document Than
The RFC series includes some documents which are informational
nature and other documents which describe experiences. A problem
perception occurs when such a document "looks like" an
protocol specification. Misguided vendors may claim conformance
it, and misguided clients may actually believe that they are
an Internet standard
Huitema, Postel & Crocker [Page 2]
RFC 1796 Not All RFCs are Standards April 1995
The IAB believes that the proper help to misguided vendors
clients is to provide them guidance. There is actually very
evidence of vendors purposely attempting to present informational
experimental RFCs as "Internet standards". If such
occurred, proper response would indeed be required
The IAB believes that the community is best served by
developed specifications. The Internet standardization
provides guarantees of openness and thorough review, and the
way to develop the specification of an Internet protocol is
through the IETF
The community is also well served by having access to
of which have been developed outside the IETF standards process
either because the protocols are experimental in nature,
developed privately, or failed to achieve the acquire the degree
consensus required for elevation to the standards track
The IAB believes that publication is better than ignorance. If
particular specification ends up being used in products that
deployed over the Internet, we are better off if the specification
easy to retrieve as an RFC than if it is hidden in some
repository
Huitema, Postel & Crocker [Page 3]
RFC 1796 Not All RFCs are Standards April 1995
Security
Security issues are not discussed in this memo
Authors'
Christian
INRIA, Sophia-
2004 Route des
BP 109
F-06561 Valbonne
Phone: +33 93 65 77 15
EMail: Christian.Huitema@MIRSA.INRIA.
Jon
USC/Information Sciences
4676 Admiralty
Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: 1-310-822-1511
EMail: Postel@ISI.
Steve
CyberCash, Inc
2086 Hunters Crest
Vienna, VA 22181
Phone: 1- 703-620-1222
EMail: crocker@cybercash.
Huitema, Postel & Crocker [Page 4]
if you see any problems within the linking, don't worry be happy,
this is version 0.1 of the Relevance System and you gotta expect some crappy subroutines sometimes,
just be content we did not write this in Java, which would have made this "bigger and better" HAHAHHA.
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