Yesterday, April 7, 2009, marked the 40th anniversary of RFC 1. Not KFC—RFC. ;-)

On this day in 1969, the first RFC appeared, and from that starting point grew one of the most important document series in the history of networking. In many ways, it became part of the foundation on which the Internet was built.

What RFC means

RFC stands for Request for Comments. It is a numbered series of documents that records information related to the Internet, as well as software and technical work produced within the UNIX and Internet communities. Today, RFC publication is sponsored by the Internet Society (ISOC).

Almost every major body of written material related to the Internet can, in one way or another, be traced through the RFC series. Anyone hoping to become deeply knowledgeable about networking will inevitably spend time with RFCs; they are among the most important and most frequently consulted references in the field, which is why they are often described as a kind of "Bible" of Internet knowledge.

In practice, RFCs have long served as a public mechanism for discussing standards and technical proposals. When an institution or group develops a standard, or even an idea for one, and wants feedback from the broader community, it can publish an RFC on the Internet for interested readers to review and comment on. Most network standards begin life in this form, then move through extensive debate and revision before being formalized by major standards bodies. At the same time, not everything published as an RFC becomes widely adopted. Some RFCs are used only in limited areas, and others are never implemented at all. Each document clearly indicates its status.

A brief history of RFCs

The RFC format first emerged in 1969 as part of the ARPANET project. Over time, it evolved into the formal publication channel for the IETF, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and several other major public networking research communities.

The earliest RFC authors wrote their documents on typewriters and circulated them among researchers working on ARPA projects. In December 1969, new RFCs began to be distributed through ARPANET itself. RFC 1 was written by Steve Crocker of UCLA and was published on April 7, 1969. One of the more memorable details from its origin is that Crocker drafted it in a bathroom so he would not disturb his roommate.

During the 1970s, many later RFCs also came out of UCLA. That reflected not only the university's academic strength, but also the fact that UCLA was among the first ARPANET sites equipped with Interface Message Processors, or IMPs.

Another major early center was the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart. It was one of the original four ARPANET nodes and also served as the first Network Information Center. Sociologist Thierry Bardini has described it as an important source of many early RFCs.

From 1969 until 1998, Jon Postel served as RFC Editor. After the expiration of U.S. government sponsorship contracts, the Internet Society, acting on behalf of the IETF, worked with the networking division of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California under IAB leadership to handle RFC drafting and publication. Postel remained RFC Editor until his death. Bob Braden later took over leadership of the project, while Joyce Reynolds continued serving on the team.

The RFC issued to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the series was RFC 2555.

How RFC documents are structured

RFCs are never withdrawn once published; the series only grows. That does not mean old documents remain authoritative forever, however. A newer RFC can formally declare that it obsoletes an older one on the same subject.

Traditionally, RFCs are plain ASCII text files, though software can automatically convert them into other formats. They include a cover page, a table of contents, headers and footers, and page numbers. Their section numbering is numeric, but does not pad decimal numbers with zeros. That means section 4.9 comes before 4.10, and there is no leading zero before 9. RFC 1000 serves as a guide to the RFC series.

How RFCs are published—and why some of them are funny

RFCs are reviewed, assigned numbers, and issued under the oversight of the Internet Society. Even so, not every RFC is a stern technical specification. Now and then, the series makes room for playful or satirical entries, especially those published on April 1 for April Fools' Day.

Well-known examples include RFC 1606, A Historical Perspective On The Usage Of IP Version 9, and RFC 2324, the Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol, which even presents the very official-looking acronym HTCPCP. There are also commemorative RFCs such as the one produced for the 30th anniversary of the series.

Forty years after RFC 1, the document series remains one of the clearest records of how the Internet was imagined, debated, documented, and gradually turned into reality.