 4 definitions found
From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:
RFC /R-F-C/ n. [Request For Comment] One of a long-established series
of numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely
followed by commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix
communities. Perhaps the single most influential one has been RFC-822
(the Internet 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
(since actually implemented; see Appendix A). See also {Infinite-Monkey
Theorem}.
The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work -- they frequently
manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal
specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often
haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to
truly worldwide proportions.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
RFC
{Request For Comments}
From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:
RFC
Remote Function Call (SAP, CPIC)
From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:
RFC
Request For Comments (Internet, RFC)
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