Re: [arch-d] [IAB] Call for Comment: <draft-iab-fiftyyears-00> (Fifty Years of RFCs)

[Heather Flanagan <[e-mail]>]

> On Jul 25, 2019, at 00:35, Darius Kazemi <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I recently learned of the Fifty Years of RFCs draft (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-iab-fiftyyears/) and the associated call for comment. I'd like to offer some commentary on it from what may be a unique position: I've spent 2019 to date reading and blogging about each RFC sequentially starting with RFC 1.
> 
> In other words, I've been running an RFC history project, and it's been pretty popular.
> 
> One blessing of this project is I get to talk on almost a daily basis with what I'd call your typical software developer or even your typical internet user about the RFC series and its history. And there is one piece of historical context around RFCs that nobody seems to understand, and this draft might be a good place to set the record straight.
> 
> Simply put: it would be nice to highlight that the original RFCs were coordinated using a physical mailing list of postal addresses and then distributed via post. That these were sometimes typewritten, and sometimes even handwritten (in the cases of RFCs 7 and 8). That there were people manually compiling these lists of addresses, making carbon copies (or similar), and mailing them out (as seen in early RFCs like RFC 24).
> 
> This may seem like a minor note, but I bring this up because I can't overstate how mind-blowing it is for people to realize that of COURSE these early inventors and experimenters had to use the postal service. They were literally inventing the internet!
> 
> For many people, this is where interest in the history of RFCs goes from "that sounds boring" to "that sounds amazing".
> 
> Anyway, I only suggest a brief expansion on the sentence in the introduction about "the distribution method change from postal mail to FTP and email." (To her credit, Jake Feinler does address this topic concretely, though still in passing, in RFC 2555.)
> 
> Thanks for reading/considering,
> Darius Kazemi
> 
> P..S. The introduction to the above-mentioned blog series is here: https://write.as/365-rfcs/365-ietf-rfcs-a-50th-anniversary-dive

Hi Darius,

First, your blog is fantastic! You are helping improve the RFC Series through the work.

Regarding your suggestion, excellent point. I will add that to the draft.

-Heather