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A Brief Introduction to Requests for Comments – The Specifications for the Internet

This article provides a brief history and explains the role of RFCs in the development of open standards and protocols for the Internet. It also discusses the significance of W3C Recommendations in the specification of web-specific technologies. Open source software and its relationship with open standards are highlighted.

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A Brief Introduction to Requests for Comments – The Specifications for the Internet

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  1. COMP 150-IDS: Internet Scale Distributed Systems (Spring 2017) A Brief Introduction toRequests for Comments–The Specifications for the Internet Noah Mendelsohn Tufts UniversityEmail: noah@cs.tufts.edu Web: http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~noah

  2. Goals • Briefly explain the history of RFCs • Explain the role of RFCs and W3C Recommendations

  3. Open StandardsandOpen Source(review)

  4. Open protocol and format standards demo1/test.html Host: webarch.noahdemo.com URI is http://webarch.noahdemo.com/demo1/test.html HTTP GET HTTP RESPONSE

  5. Open protocol and format standards demo1/test.html Host: webarch.noahdemo.com URI is http://webarch.noahdemo.com/demo1/test.html HTTP GET Open Standards protocols and formats: client doesn’t see resource/server details HTTP RESPONSE

  6. Open protocol and format standards demo1/test.html Host: webarch.noahdemo.com URI is http://webarch.noahdemo.com/demo1/test.html HTTP GET Open Standards protocols and formats: server supports any client HTTP RESPONSE

  7. Open source software Open Software sometimes useful for implementing servers or clients – promotes open standards protocols and formats: server supports any client demo1/test.html Host: webarch.noahdemo.com Open Standards protocols and formats: server supports any client URI is http://webarch.noahdemo.com/demo1/test.html HTTP GET Apache? Firefox? HTTP RESPONSE

  8. A short history of RFCs All quotes from Steve Crocker: the “inventor” of RFCs 8

  9. There was no adult in the room, as it were. We were all more or less in our mid-20s and self-organized… Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/steve-crocker/all/

  10. […] but then I realized that the mere act of writing down what were talking about could be seen as a presumption of authority and someone was going to come and yell at us — presumably some adult out of the east, either Boston or Washington… Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/steve-crocker/all/

  11. […] so I got increasingly nervous. I was staying with some friends in the Pacific Palisades area, and late one night, I couldn’t sleep and the only place I could work without waking people up was in the bathroom. It was 3 a.m., and I scribbled down some rules for these notes... Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/steve-crocker/all/

  12. …I said that they were completely informal, that they didn’t count as publications. You could ask questions without answers. You just had to put your name and the date and a title on these things, and I’d assign them a number as fast as you wrote them… Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/steve-crocker/all/

  13. … to emphasize the informal nature, I hit upon this silly little idea of calling every one of them a ‘Request for Comments’ — no matter whether it really was a request or how formal or how informal. Source: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/05/steve-crocker/all/

  14. RFCs remain the documentation for Internet Protocols • RFCs • The offiical documentation for Internet and low-level Web technologies • Created in the Internet Engineering Task Force • IETF is a very open organization: you could attend meetings and participate • RFCs cover wide range of topics from specifications to more informal and speculative discussion • IETF’s mantra: “rough consensus and running code” • W3C Recommendations • Used for specification of Web-specific technologies like HTML • Created by member-driven “process” with public input • HTTP & URI are joint work of IETF and W3C (RFC 2616, RFC 3986, etc.)

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