资料来源 : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Request For Comments
     
         (RFC) One of a series, begun in 1969, of numbered
        {Internet} informational documents and {standard}s widely
        followed by commercial software and {freeware} in the
        {Internet} and {Unix} communities.  Few RFCs are standards but
        all Internet standards are recorded in RFCs.  Perhaps the
        single most influential RFC has been {RFC 822}, the Internet
        {electronic mail} format standard.
     
        The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical
        experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the
        Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an
        institution such as {ANSI}.  For this reason, they remain
        known as RFCs even once adopted as standards.
     
        The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven,
        after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small
        working groups has important advantages over the more formal,
        committee-driven process typical of {ANSI} or {ISO}.
     
        Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a
        flourishing tradition of "joke" RFCs; usually at least one a
        year is published, usually on April 1st.  Well-known joke RFCs
        have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June
        1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1
        April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP
        Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April
        1990).  The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a
        parody of the {TCP/IP} documentation style, and the third a
        deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing
        protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier
        pigeon.
     
        The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work - they
        manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife
        in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated
        {misfeature}s that often haunt formal standards, and they
        define a network that has grown to truly worldwide
        proportions.
     
        {rfc.net (http://www.rfc.net/)}.
        {W3
        (http://www.w3.org/hypertext/DataSources/Archives/RFC_sites.html)}.
        {JANET UK FTP (ftp://nic.ja.net/pub/newsfiles/JIPS/rfc)}.
        {Imperial College, UK FTP (ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/rfc/)}.
        {Nexor UK (http://www.nexor.com/public/rfc/index/rfc.html)}.
        {Ohio State U
        (http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html)}.
     
        See also {For Your Information}, {STD}.
     
        (1997-11-10)