On Mon, Apr 08, 2002 at 11:21:46PM +0200, Martin Karlsson wrote: > * David Champion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2002-04-08 14.06 -0500]: > [...snip...] > > (This is recommended, not required.) See RFC 2822, section 3.6.4. > > Sorry for going OT, but could someone please point me to a site or > document which explains _what_ an RFC (yeah, request for comment, I > managed to google that far :-) ) really /is/, and what types of RFCs > there are and why thera are more than one type of RFC?
http://www.rfc-editor.org/ To answer the other questions backwards: There is more than one type of RFC because people need more than one type. The types of RFC are Standards, Informational, and Experimental. Standards are exactly that: if you want to interoperate with other people using a particular protocol, this is the official description of how to do it. Informational/Experimental are exactly that: if you want to know how other people are doing things which haven't been standardized yet, or can't or won't be standardized, or aren't easily standardized, or a summary of several approaches, this is what you want to read. Typical labels: STD for standard, BCP for best current practices, FYI for informational. Finally, why they are called RFCs: At a meeting discussing what would become NCP in 1969, a grad student was assigned to take notes. As he wasn't sure he had written everything down exactly right, he wrote "Request For Comments" across the top when he made copies and distributed them. -dsr-
