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rfc:rfc2555

Network Working Group RFC Editor, et al. Request for Comments: 2555 USC/ISI Category: Informational 7 April 1999

                          30 Years of RFCs

Status of this Memo

 This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
 not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
 memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

Table of Contents

 1.  Introduction.................................................. 2
 2.  Reflections................................................... 2
 3.  The First Pebble: Publication of RFC 1........................ 3
 4.  RFCs - The Great Conversation................................. 5
 5.  Reflecting on 30 years of RFCs................................ 9
 6.  Favorite RFCs -- The First 30 Years...........................14
 7.  Security Considerations.......................................15
 8.  Acknowledgments...............................................15
 9.  Authors' Addresses............................................15
 10. APPENDIX - RFC 1..............................................17
 11. Full Copyright Statement......................................18

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

1. Introduction - Robert Braden

 Thirty years ago today, the first Request for Comments document,
 RFC 1, was published at UCLA (ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1.txt).
 This was the first of a series that currently contains more than 2500
 documents on computer networking, collected, archived, and edited by
 Jon Postel for 28 years.  Jon has left us, but this 30th anniversary
 tribute to the RFC series is assembled in grateful admiration for his
 massive contribution.
 The rest of this document contains a brief recollection from the
 present RFC Editor Joyce K. Reynolds, followed by recollections from
 three pioneers: Steve Crocker who wrote RFC 1, Vint Cerf whose long-
 range vision continues to guide us, and Jake Feinler who played a key
 role in the middle years of the RFC series.

2. Reflections - Joyce K. Reynolds

 A very long time ago when I was dabbling in IP network number and
 protocol parameter assignments with Jon Postel, gateways were still
 "dumb", the Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) was in its infancy and
 TOPS-20 was in its heyday.  I was aware of the Request for Comments
 (RFCs) document series, with Jon as the RFC Editor.  I really didn't
 know much of the innerworkings of what the task entailed.  It was
 Jon's job and he quietly went about publishing documents for the
 ARPANET community.
 Meanwhile, Jon and I would have meetings in his office to go over our
 specific tasks of the day.  One day, I began to notice that a pile of
 folders sitting to one side of his desk seemed to be growing.  A few
 weeks later the pile had turned into two stacks of folders.  I asked
 him what they were.  Apparently, they contained documents for RFC
 publication.  Jon was trying to keep up with the increasing quantity
 of submissions for RFC publication.
 I mentioned to him one day that he should learn to let go of some of
 his work load and task it on to other people.  He listened intently,
 but didn't comment.  The very next day, Jon wheeled a computer stand
 into my office which was stacked with those documents from his desk
 intended for RFC publication.  He had a big Cheshire cat grin on his
 face and stated, "I'm letting go!", and walked away.
 At the top of the stack was a big red three ring notebook.  Inside
 contained the "NLS Textbook", which was prepared at ISI by Jon, Lynne
 Sims and Linda Sato for use on ISI's TENEX and TOPS-20 systems.  Upon
 reading its contents, I learned that the NLS system was designed to
 help people work with information on a computer.  It included a wide
 range of tools, from a simple set of commands for writing, reading

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 2] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 and printing documents to sophisticated methods for retrieving and
 communication information.  NLS was the system Jon used to write,
 edit and create the RFCs.  Thus began my indoctrination to the RFC
 publication series.
 Operating systems and computers have changed over the years, but
 Jon's perseverance about the consistency of the RFC style and quality
 of the documents remained true.  Unfortunately, Jon did not live to
 see the 30th Anniversary of this series that he unfailingly nurtured.
 Yet, the spirit of the RFC publication series continues as we
 approach the new millennium.  Jon would be proud.

3. The First Pebble: Publication of RFC 1 - Steve Crocker

 RFC 1, "Host Software", issued thirty years ago on April 7, 1969
 outlined some thoughts and initial experiments.  It was a modest and
 entirely forgettable memo, but it has significance because it was
 part of a broad initiative whose impact is still with us today.
 At the time RFC 1 was written, the ARPANET was still under design.
 Bolt, Beranek and Newman had won the all-important contract to build
 and operate the Interface Message Processors or "IMPs", the
 forerunners of the modern routers.  They were each the size of a
 refrigerator and cost about $100,000 in 1969 dollars.
 The network was scheduled to be deployed among the research sites
 supported by ARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).
 The first four nodes were to be at UCLA, SRI, University of
 California, Santa Barbara and University of Utah.  The first
 installation, at UCLA, was set for September 1, 1969.
 Although there had been considerable planning of the topology, leased
 lines, modems and IMPs, there was little organization or planning
 regarding network applications.  It was assumed the research sites
 would figure it out.  This turned out to be a brilliant management
 decision at ARPA.
 Previously, in the summer of 1968, a handful of graduate students and
 staff members from the four sites were called together to discuss the
 forthcoming network.  There was only a basic outline.  BBN had not
 yet won the contract, and there was no technical specification for
 the network's operation.  At the first meeting, we scheduled future
 meetings at each of the other laboratories, thus setting the stage
 for today's thrice yearly movable feast.  Over the next couple of
 years, the group grew substantially and we found ourselves with
 overflow crowds of fifty to a hundred people at Network Working Group
 meetings.  Compared to modern IETF meetings all over the world with
 attendance in excess of 1,000 people and several dozen active working

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 3] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 groups, the early Network Working Groups were small and tame, but
 they seemed large and only barely manageable at the time.  One
 tradition that doesn't seem to have changed at all is the spirit of
 unrestrained participation in working group meetings.
 Our initial group met a handful of times in the summer and fall of
 1968 and winter 1969.  Our earliest meetings were unhampered by
 knowledge of what the network would look like or how it would
 interact with the hosts.  Depending on your point of view, this
 either allowed us or forced us to think about broader and grander
 topics.  We recognized we would eventually have to get around to
 dealing with message formats and other specific details of low-level
 protocols, but our first thoughts focused on what applications the
 network might support.  In our view, the 50 kilobit per second
 communication lines being used for the ARPANET seemed slow, and we
 worried that it might be hard to provide high-quality interactive
 service across the network.  I wish we had not been so accurate!
 When BBN issued its Host-IMP specification in spring 1969, our
 freedom to wander over broad and grand topics ended.  Before then,
 however, we tried to consider the most general designs and the most
 exciting applications.  One thought that captured our imagination was
 the idea of downloading a small interpretative program at the
 beginning of a session.  The downloaded program could then control
 the interactions and make efficient use of the narrow bandwidth
 between the user's local machine and the back-end system the user was
 interacting with. Jeff Rulifson at SRI was the prime mover of this
 line of thinking, and he took a crack at designing a Decode-Encode
 Language (DEL) [RFC 5].  Michel Elie, visiting at UCLA from France,
 worked on this idea further and published Proposal for a Network
 Interchange Language (NIL) [RFC 51].  The emergence of Java and
 ActiveX in the last few years finally brings those early ideas to
 fruition, and we're not done yet.  I think we will continue to see
 striking advances in combining communication and computing.
 I have already suggested that the early RFCs and the associated
 Network Working Group laid the foundation for the Internet
 Engineering Task Force.  Two all-important aspects of the early work
 deserve mention, although they're completely evident to anyone who
 participates in the process today.  First, the technical direction we
 chose from the beginning was an open architecture based on multiple
 layers of protocol.  We were frankly too scared to imagine that we
 could define an all-inclusive set of protocols that would serve
 indefinitely.  We envisioned a continual process of evolution and
 addition, and obviously this is what's happened.

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 4] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 The RFCs themselves also represented a certain sense of fear.  After
 several months of meetings, we felt obliged to write down our
 thoughts.  We parceled out the work and wrote the initial batch of
 memos.  In addition to participating in the technical design, I took
 on the administrative function of setting up a simple scheme for
 numbering and distributing the notes.  Mindful that our group was
 informal, junior and unchartered, I wanted to emphasize these notes
 were the beginning of a dialog and not an assertion of control.
 It's now been thirty years since the first RFCs were issued.  At the
 time, I believed the notes were temporary and the entire series would
 die off in a year or so once the network was running.  Thanks to the
 spectacular efforts of the entire community and the perseverance and
 dedication of Jon Postel, Joyce Reynolds and their crew, the humble
 series of Requests for Comments evolved and thrived.  It became the
 mainstay for sharing technical designs in the Internet community and
 the archetype for other communities as well.  Like the Sorcerer's
 Apprentice, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and our worst
 fears.

4. RFCs - The Great Conversation - Vint Cerf

 A long time ago, in a network far, far away...
 Considering the movement of planet Earth around the Sun and the Sun
 around the Milky Way galaxy, that first network IS far away in the
 relativistic sense. It takes 200 million years for the Sun to make
 its way around the galaxy, so thirty years is only an eyeblink on the
 galactic clock. But what a marvelous thirty years it has been! The
 RFCs document the odyssey of the ARPANET and, later, the Internet, as
 its creators and netizens explore, discover, build, re-build, argue
 and resolve questions of design, concepts and applications of
 computer networking.
 It has been ultimately fascinating to watch the transformation of the
 RFCs themselves from their earliest, tentative dialog form to today's
 much more structured character. The growth of applications such as
 email, bulletin boards and the world wide web have had much to do
 with that transformation, but so has the scale and impact of the
 Internet on our social and economic fabric. As the Internet has taken
 on greater economic importance, the standards documented in the RFCs
 have become more important and the RFCs more formal. The dialog has
 moved to other venues as technology has changed and the working
 styles have adapted.

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 5] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 Hiding in the history of the RFCs is the history of human
 institutions for achieving cooperative work. And also hiding in that
 history are some heroes that haven't been acknowledged.  On this
 thirtieth anniversary, I am grateful for the opportunity to
 acknowledge some of them. It would be possible to fill a book with
 such names - mostly of the authors of the RFCs, but as this must be a
 brief contribution, I want to mention four of them in particular:
 Steve Crocker, Jon Postel, Joyce K. Reynolds and Bob Braden.
 Steve Crocker is a modest man and would likely never make the
 observation that while the contents of RFC 1 might have been entirely
 forgettable, the act of writing RFC 1 was indicative of the brave and
 ultimately clear-visioned leadership that he brought to a journey
 into the unknown. There were no guides in those days - computer
 networking was new and few historical milestones prepared us for what
 lay ahead. Steve's ability to accommodate a diversity of views, to
 synthesize them into coherence and, like Tom Sawyer, to persuade
 others that they wanted to devote their time to working on the
 problems that lay in the path of progress can be found in the early
 RFCs and in the Network Working Group meetings that Steve led.
 In the later work on Internet, I did my best to emulate the framework
 that Steve invented: the International Network Working Group (INWG)
 and its INWG Notes, the Internet Working Group and its Internet
 Experiment Notes (IENs) were brazen knock-offs of Steve's
 organizational vision and style.
 It is doubtful that the RFCs would be the quality body of material
 they are today were it not for Jonathan Postel's devotion to them
 from the start. Somehow, Jon knew, even thirty years ago that it
 might be important to document what was done and why, to say nothing
 of trying to capture the debate for the benefit of future networkers
 wondering how we'd reached some of the conclusions we did (and
 probably shake their heads...).
 Jon was the network's Boswell, but it was his devotion to quality and
 his remarkable mix of technical and editing skills that permeate many
 of the more monumental RFCs that dealt with what we now consider the
 TCP/IP standards. Many bad design decisions were re-worked thanks to
 Jon's stubborn determination that we all get it "right" - as the
 editor, he simply would not let something go out that didn't meet his
 personal quality filter. There were times when we moaned and
 complained, hollered and harangued, but in the end, most of the time,
 Jon was right and we knew it.

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 6] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 Joyce K. Reynolds was at Jon's side for much of the time that Jon was
 the RFC editor and as has been observed, they functioned in unison
 like a matched pair of superconducting electrons - and
 superconductors they were of the RFC series. For all practical
 purposes, it was impossible to tell which of the two had edited any
 particular RFC. Joyce's passion for quality has matched Jon's and
 continues to this day. And she has the same subtle, puckish sense of
 humor that emerged at unexpected moments in Jon's stewardship. One
 example that affected me personally was Joyce's assignment of number
 2468 to the RFC written to remember Jon.  I never would have thought
 of that, and it was done so subtly that it didn't even ring a bell
 until someone sent me an email asking whether this was a coincidence.
 In analog to classical mystery stories, the editor did it.
 Another unsung hero in the RFC saga is Bob Braden - another man whose
 modesty belies contributions of long-standing and monumental
 proportions. It is my speculation that much of the quality of the
 RFCs can be traced to consultations among the USC/ISI team, including
 Jon, Joyce and Bob among others. Of course, RFC 1122 and 1123 stand
 as two enormous contributions to the clarity of the Internet
 standards. For that task alone, Bob deserves tremendous appreciation,
 but he has led the End-to-End Research Group for many years out of
 which has come some of the most important RFCs that refine our
 understanding of optimal implementation of the protocols, especially
 TCP.
 When the RFCs were first produced, they had an almost 19th century
 character to them - letters exchanged in public debating the merits
 of various design choices for protocols in the ARPANET. As email and
 bulletin boards emerged from the fertile fabric of the network, the
 far-flung participants in this historic dialog began to make
 increasing use of the online medium to carry out the discussion -
 reducing the need for documenting the debate in the RFCs and, in some
 respects, leaving historians somewhat impoverished in the process.
 RFCs slowly became conclusions rather than debates.
 Jon permitted publication of items other than purely technical
 documents in this series. Hence one finds poetry, humor (especially
 the April 1 RFCs which are as funny today as they were when they were
 published), and reprints of valuable reference material mixed into
 the documents prepared by the network working groups.
 In the early 1970s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency was
 conducting several parallel research programs into packet switching
 technology, after the stunning success of this idea in the ARPANET.
 Among these were the Packet Radio Network, the Atlantic Packet
 Satellite Network and the Internet projects. These each spawned note
 series akin to but parallel to the RFCs. PRNET Notes, ARPA Satellite

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 7] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 System Notes (bearing the obvious and unfortunate acronym...),
 Internet Experiment Notes (IENs), and so on. After the Internet
 protocols were mandated to be used on the ARPANET and other DARPA-
 sponsored networks in January 1983 (SATNET actually converted before
 that), Internet- related notes were merged into the RFC series. For a
 time, after the Internet project seemed destined to bear fruit, IENs
 were published in parallel with RFCs. A few voices, Danny Cohen's in
 particular (who was then at USC/ISI with Jon Postel) suggested that
 separate series were a mistake and that it would be a lot easier to
 maintain and to search a single series. Hindsight seems to have
 proven Danny right as the RFC series, with its dedicated editors,
 seems to have borne the test of time far better than its more
 ephemeral counterparts.
 As the organizations associated with Internet continued to evolve,
 one sees the RFCs adapting to changed circumstances. Perhaps the most
 powerful influence can be seen from the evolution of the Internet
 Engineering Task Force from just one of several task forces whose
 chairpersons formed the Internet Activities Board to the dominant,
 global Internet Standards development organization, managed by its
 Internet Engineering Steering Group and operating under the auspices
 of the Internet Society. The process of producing "standards-track"
 RFCs is now far more rigorous than it once was, carries far more
 impact on a burgeoning industry, and has spawned its own, relatively
 informal "Internet Drafts" series of short-lived documents forming
 the working set of the IETF working groups.
 The dialogue that once characterized the early RFCs has given way to
 thrice-annual face-to-face meetings of the IETF and enormous
 quantities of email, as well as a growing amount of group-interactive
 work through chat rooms, shared white boards and even more elaborate
 multicast conferences. The parallelism and the increasing quantity of
 transient dialogue surrounding the evolution of the Internet has made
 the task of technology historians considerably more difficult,
 although one can sense a counter-balancing through the phenomenal
 amount of information accumulating in the World Wide Web. Even casual
 searches often turn up some surprising and sometimes embarrassing old
 memoranda - a number of which were once paper but which have been
 rendered into bits by some enterprising volunteer.
 The RFCs, begun so tentatively thirty years ago, and persistently
 edited and maintained by Jon Postel and his colleagues at USC/ISI,
 tell a remarkable story of exploration, achievement, and dedication
 by a growing mass of internauts who will not sleep until the Internet
 truly is for everyone. It is in that spirit that this remembrance is
 offered, and in particular, in memory of our much loved colleague,
 Jon Postel, without whose personal commitment to this archive, the
 story might have been vastly different and not nearly as remarkable.

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 8] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

5. Reflecting on 30 years of RFCs - Jake Feinler

 By now we know that the first RFC was published on April 7, 1969 by
 Steve Crocker.  It was entitled "Host Software".  The second RFC was
 published on April 9, 1969 by Bill Duvall of SRI International (then
 called Stanford Research Institute or SRI), and it too was entitled
 "Host Software".  RFC 2 was a response to suggestions made in RFC 1-
 -and so the dialog began.
 Steve proposed 2 experiments in RFC 1:
 "1)  SRI is currently modifying their on-line retrieval system which
 will be the major software component of the Network Documentation
 Center [or The SRI NIC as it soon came to be known] so that it can be
 modified with Model 35 teletypes.  The control of the teletypes will
 be written in DEL [Decode-Encode Language].  All sites will write DEL
 compilers and use NLS [SRI Doug Engelbart's oNLine System] through
 the DEL program".
 "2)  SRI will write a DEL front end for full NLS, graphics included.
 UCLA and UTAH will use NLS with graphics".
 RFC 2, issued 2 days later, proposed detailed procedures for
 connecting to the NLS documentation system across the network.  Steve
 may think RFC 1 was an "entirely forgettable" document; however, as
 an information person, I beg to differ with him.  The concepts
 presented in this first dialog were mind boggling, and eventually led
 to the kind of network interchange we are all using on the web today.
 (Fortunately, we have graduated beyond DEL and Model 35 teletypes!)
 RFC 1 was, I believe, a paper document.  RFC 2 was produced online
 via the SRI NLS system and was entered into the online SRI NLS
 Journal.  However, it was probably mailed to each recipient via snail
 mail by the NIC, as email and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) had
 not yet been invented.
 RFC 3, again by Steve Crocker, was entitled, "Documentation
 Conventions;" and we see that already the need for a few ground rules
 was surfacing. More ground-breaking concepts were introduced in this
 RFC.  It stated that:
 "The Network Working Group (NWG) is concerned with the HOST software,
 the strategies for using the network, and the initial experiments
 with the network.  Documentation of the NWG's effort is through notes
 such as this.  Notes may be produced at any site by anybody and
 included in this series".

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 9] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 It goes on to say:
 "The content of a NWG note may be any thought, suggestion,
 etc.related to the Host software or other aspect of the network.
 Notes are encouraged to be timely rather than polished.
 Philosophical positions without examples or other specifics, specific
 suggestions or implementation techniques without introductory or
 background explanation, and explicit questions without any attempted
 answers are all acceptable.  The minimum length for a NWG note is one
 sentence".
 "These standards (or lack of them) are stated explicitly for two
 reasons.  First, there is a tendency to view a written statement as
 discussion of considerably less than authoritative ideas.  Second,
 there is a natural hesitancy to publish something unpolished, and we
 hope to ease this inhibition".
 Steve asked that this RFC be sent to a distribution list consisting
 of:
      Bob Kahn, BBN
      Larry Roberts, ARPA
      Steve Carr, UCLA
      Jeff Rulifson, UTAH
      Ron Stoughton, UCSB
      Steve Crocker, UCLA
 Thus by the time the third RFC was published, many of the concepts of
 how to do business in this new networking environment had been
 established--there would be a working group of implementers (NWG)
 actually discussing and trying things out; ideas were to be free-
 wheeling; communications would be informal; documents would be
 deposited (online when possible) at the NIC and distributed freely to
 members of the working group; and anyone with something to contribute
 could come to the party.  With this one document a swath was
 instantly cut through miles of red tape and pedantic process.  Was
 this radical for the times or what!  And we were only up to RFC 3!
 Many more RFCs followed and the SRI NLS Journal became the
 bibliographic search service of the ARPANET.  It differed from other
 search services of the time in one important respect:  when you got a
 "hit" searching the journal online, not only did you get a citation
 telling you such things as the author and title; you got an
 associated little string of text called a "link".  If you used a
 command called "jump to link",  voila!  you got the full text of the
 document.  You did not have to go to the library, or send an order
 off to an issuing agency to get a copy of the document, as was the
 custom with other search services of the time.  The whole document

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 10] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 itself was right there immediately!
 Also, any document submitted to the journal could not be changed.
 New versions could be submitted, and these superceded old versions,
 but again the new versions could not be changed.  Each document was
 given a unique identifying number, so it was easy to track.  These
 features were useful in a fast-moving environment.  Documents often
 went through several drafts before they were finally issued as an RFC
 or other official document, and being able to track versions was very
 useful.
 The SRI NLS Journal was revolutionary for the time; however, access
 to it online presented several operational problems.  Host computers
 were small and crowded, and the network was growing by leaps and
 bounds; so connections had to be timed out and broken to give
 everyone a chance at access.  Also, the rest of the world was still a
 paper world (and there were no scanners or laser printers, folks!),
 so the NIC still did a brisk business sending out paper documents to
 requestors.
 By 1972 when I became Principal Investigator for the NIC project, the
 ARPANET was growing rapidly, and more and more hosts were being
 attached to it.  Each host was required to have a technical contact
 known as the Technical Liaison, and most of the Liaison were also
 members of the NWG.  Each Liaison was sent a set of documents by the
 NIC called "functional documents" which included the Protocol
 Handbook (first issued by BBN and later published by the NIC.)  The
 content of the Protocol Handbook was made up of key RFCs and a
 document called "BBN 1822" which specified the Host-to-Imp protocol.
 The NWG informed the NIC as to which documents should be included in
 the handbook; and the NIC assembled, published, and distributed the
 book. Alex McKenzie of BBN helped the NIC with the first version of
 the handbook, but soon a young fellow, newly out of grad school,
 named Jon Postel joined the NWG and became the NIC's contact and
 ARPA's spokesperson for what should be issued in the Protocol
 Handbook.
 No one who is familiar with the RFCs can think of them without
 thinking of Dr. Jonathan Postel.  He was "Mister RFC" to most of us.
 Jon worked at SRI in the seventies and had the office next to mine.
 We were both members of Doug Engelbart's Augmentation Research
 Center.  Not only was Jon a brilliant computer scientist, he also
 cared deeply about the process of disseminating information and
 establishing a methodology for working in a networking environment.
 We often had conversations way into the wee hours talking about ways
 to do this "right".  The network owes Jon a debt of gratitude for his
 dedication to the perpetuation of the RFCs.  His work, along with

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 11] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 that of his staff, the NWG, the IETF, the various NICs, and CNRI to
 keep this set of documents viable over the years was, and continues
 to be, a labor of love.
 Jon left SRI in 1976 to join USC-ISI, but by that time the die was
 cast, and the RFCs, NWG, Liaison, and the NIC were part of the
 network's way of doing business. However, the SRI NLS Journal system
 was becoming too big for its host computer and could not handle the
 number of users trying to access it.  Email and FTP had been
 implemented by now, so the NIC developed methodology for delivering
 information to users via distributed information servers across the
 network.  A user could request an RFC by email from his host computer
 and have it automatically delivered to his mailbox.  Users could also
 purchase hardcopy subscriptions to the RFCs and copies of the
 Protocol Handbook, if they did not have network access.
 The NIC worked with Jon, ARPA, DCA, NSF, other NICs, and other
 agencies to have secondary reference sets of RFCs easily accessible
 to implementers throughout the world.  The RFCs were also shared
 freely with official standards bodies, manufacturers and vendors,
 other working groups, and universities.  None of the RFCs were ever
 restricted or classified.  This was no mean feat when you consider
 that they were being funded by DoD during the height of the Cold War.
 Many of us worked very hard in the early days to establish the RFCs
 as the official set of technical notes for the development of the
 Internet.  This was not an easy job.  There were suggestions for many
 parallel efforts and splinter groups.  There were naysayers all along
 the way because this was a new way of doing things, and the ARPANET
 was "coloring outside the lines" so to speak.  Jon, as Editor-in-
 Chief was criticized because the RFCs were not issued by an
 "official" standards body, and the NIC was criticized because it was
 not an "official" document issuing agency.  We both strived to marry
 the new way of doing business with the old, and fortunately were
 usually supported by our government sponsors, who themselves were
 breaking new ground.
 Many RFCs were the end result of months of heated discussion and
 implementation.  Authoring one of them was not for the faint of
 heart.  Feelings often ran high as to what was the "right" way to go.
 Heated arguments sometimes ensued.  Usually they were confined to
 substance, but sometimes they got personal.  Jon would often step in
 and arbitrate.  Eventually the NWG or the Sponsors had to say, "It's
 a wrap.  Issue a final RFC".  Jon, as Editor-in-Chief of the RFCs,
 often took merciless flak from those who wanted to continue
 discussing and implementing, or those whose ideas were left on the
 cutting room floor.  Somehow he always managed to get past these
 controversies with style and grace and move on.  We owe him and

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 12] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 others, who served on the NWG or authored RFCs, an extreme debt of
 gratitude for their contributions and dedication.
 At no time was the controversy worse than it was when DoD adopted
 TCP/IP as its official host-to-host protocols for communications
 networks.  In March 1982, a military directive was issued by the
 Under Secretary of Defense, Richard DeLauer.  It simply stated that
 the use of TCP and IP was mandatory for DoD communications networks.
 Bear in mind that a military directive is not something you discuss -
 the time for discussion is long over when one is issued.  Rather a
 military directive is something you DO.  The ARPANET and its
 successor, the Defense Data Network, were military networks, so the
 gauntlet was down and the race was on to prove whether the new
 technology could do the job on a real operational network.  You have
 no idea what chaos and controversy that little 2-page directive
 caused on the network.  (But that's a story for another time.)
 However, that directive, along with RFCs 791 and 793 (IP and TCP)
 gave the RFCs as a group of technical documents stature and
 recognition throughout the world.  (And yes, TCP/IP certainly did do
 the job!)
 Jon and I were both government contractors, so of course followed the
 directions of our contracting officers.  He was mainly under contract
 to ARPA, whereas the NIC was mainly under contract to DCA.  BBN was
 another key contractor.  For the most part we all worked as a team.
 However, there was frequent turnover in military personnel assigned
 to both the ARPANET and the DDN, and we all collaborated to try to
 get all the new participants informed as to what was available to
 them when they joined the network.  We also tried to foster
 collaboration rather than duplication of effort, when it was
 appropriate.  The NWG (or IETF as it is now known) and the RFCs
 became the main vehicles for interagency collaboration as the DoD
 protocols began to be used on other government, academic, and
 commercial networks.
 I left SRI and the NIC project in 1989.  At that time there were
 about 30,000 hosts on what was becoming known as the Internet, and
 just over a 1000 RFCs had been issued.  Today there are millions of
 hosts on the Internet, and we are well past the 3000 mark for RFCs.
 It was great fun to be a part of what turned out to be a
 technological revolution.   It is heartwarming to see that the RFCs
 are still being issued by the IETF, and that they are still largely
 based on ideas that have been discussed and implemented; that the
 concepts of online working groups and distributed information servers
 are a way of life; that those little "links" (officially known as
 hypertext) have revolutionized the delivery of documents; and that
 the government, academia, and business are now all playing the same
 game for fun and profit.  (Oh yes, I'm happy to see that Steve's idea

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 13] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 for integrated text and graphics has finally come to fruition,
 although that work took a little longer than 2 days.)

6. Favorite RFCs – The First 30 Years - Celeste Anderson

 Five years ago, Jon Postel and I had wanted to publish a 25th RFC
 anniversary book, but, alas, we were both too busy working on other
 projects.  We determined then that we should commemorate the
 thirtieth anniversary by collecting together thirty "RFC Editors'
 Choice" RFCs based on original ideas expressed throughout the first
 30 years of their existence.
 Jon's untimely death in October 1998 prevented us from completing
 this goal.  We did, however, start to put online some of the early
 RFCs, including RFC 1.  We weren't sure whether we were going to try
 to make them look as close to the typewritten originals as possible,
 or to make a few adjustments and format them according to the latest
 RFC style.  Those of you who still have your copies of RFC 1 will
 note the concessions we made to NROFF the online version.  The hand-
 drawn diagrams of the early RFCs also present interesting challenges
 for conversion into ASCII format.
 There are still opportunities to assist the RFC Editor to put many of
 the early RFCs online.  Check the URL:
 http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-online.html for more information on this
 project.
 In memory of Jon, we are compiling a book for publication next year
 of "Favorite RFCs -- The First 30 Years".
 We have set up a web interface at
         http://www.rfc-editor.org/voterfc.html
 for tabulating votes and recording the responses.  We will accept
 email as well.  Please send your email responses to: voterfc@isi.edu.
 We prefer votes accompanied by explanations for the vote choice.
 We reserve the right to add to the list several RFCs that Jon Postel
 had already selected for the collection.  Voting closes December 31,
 1999.

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 14] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

7. Security Considerations

 Security issues are not discussed in this commemorative RFC.

8. Acknowledgments

 Thank you to all the authors who contributed to this RFC on short
 notice.  Thanks also to Fred Baker and Eve Schooler who goaded us
 into action.  A special acknowledgment to Eitetsu Baumgardner, a
 student at USC, who NROFFed this document and who assisted in the
 formatting of RFCs 1, 54, and 62, converting hand-drawn diagrams into
 ASCII format.

9. Authors' Addresses

 Robert Braden
 USC/Information Sciences Institute
 4676 Admiralty Way #1001
 Marina del Rey, CA 90292
 Phone:  +1 310-822-1511
 Fax:    +1 310 823 6714
 EMail:  braden@isi.edu
 Joyce K. Reynolds
 USC/Information Sciences Institute
 4676 Admiralty Way #1001
 Marina del Rey, CA 90292
 Phone:  +1 310-822-1511
 Fax:    +1 310-823-6714
 EMail:  jkrey@isi.edu
 Steve Crocker
 Steve Crocker Associates, LLC
 5110 Edgemoor Lane
 Bethesda, MD 20814
 Phone:   +1 301-654-4569
 Fax:     +1 202-478-0458
 EMail:   crocker@mbl.edu

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 15] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

 Vint Cerf
 MCI
 EMail: vcerf@mci.net
 Jake Feinler
 SRI Network Information Center
 1972-1989
 EMail: feinler@juno.com
 Celeste Anderson
 USC/Information Sciences Institute
 4676 Admiralty Way #1001
 Marina del Rey, CA 90292
 Phone:  +1 310-822-1511
 Fax:    +1 310-823-6714
 EMail:  celeste@isi.edu

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 16] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

10. APPENDIX - RFC 1

 The cover page said at the top:
   "Network Working Group
    Request for Comments"
 and then came an internal UCLA distribution list:
   V. Cerf, S. Crocker, M. Elie, G. Estrin, G. Fultz, A. Gomez,
   D. Karas, L. Kleinrock, J. Postel, M. Wingfield, R. Braden,
   and W. Kehl.
 followed by an "Off Campus" distribution list:
   A. Bhushan (MIT), S. Carr (Utah), G. Cole (SDC), W. English (SRI),
   K. Fry (Mitre), J. Heafner (Rand), R. Kahn (BBN), L. Roberts (ARPA),
   P. Rovner (MIT), and R. Stoughton (UCSB).
 The following title page had
   "Network Working Group
    Request for Comments: 1"
 at the top, and then:
             HOST SOFTWARE
             STEVE CROCKER
             7 APRIL 1969

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 17] RFC 2555 30 Years of RFCs 7 April 1999

11. Full Copyright Statement

 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.
 This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished
 to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise
 explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied,
 published and distributed, in whole or in part, without
 restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice
 and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative
 works.  However, this document itself may not be modified in any
 way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the
 Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed
 for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the
 procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards
 process must be followed, or as required to translate it into
 languages other than English.
 The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not
 be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.
 This document and the information contained herein is provided on
 an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
 ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
 THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

RFC Editor, et al. Informational [Page 18]

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