RFC 1796 (rfc1796) - Page 1 of 4

Not All RFCs are Standards

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Network Working Group                                         C. Huitema
Request for Comments: 1796                                         INRIA
Category: Informational                                        J. Postel
                                                                     ISI
                                                              S. Crocker
                                                               CyberCash
                                                              April 1995


                       Not All RFCs are Standards

Status of this Memo

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

Abstract

   This document discusses the relationship of the Request for Comments
   (RFCs) notes to Internet Standards.

Not All RFCs Are Standards

   The "Request for Comments" (RFC) document series is the official
   publication channel for Internet standards documents and other
   publications of the IESG, IAB, and Internet community.  From time to
   time, and about every six months in the last few years, someone
   questions the rationality of publishing both Internet standards and
   informational documents as RFCs.  The argument is generally that this
   introduces some confusion between "real standards" and "mere
   publications".

   It is a regrettably well spread misconception that publication as an
   RFC provides some level of recognition.  It does not, or at least not
   any more than the publication in a regular journal.  In fact, each
   RFC has a status, relative to its relation with the Internet
   standardization process: Informational, Experimental, or Standards
   Track (Proposed Standard, Draft Standard, Internet Standard), or
   Historic.  This status is reproduced on the first page of the RFC
   itself, and is also documented in the periodic "Internet Official
   Protocols Standards" RFC (STD 1).  But this status is sometimes
   omitted from quotes and references, which may feed the confusion.

   There are two important sources of information on the status of the
   Internet standards:  they are summarized periodically in an RFC
   entitled "Internet Official Protocol Standards" and they are
   documented in the "STD" subseries.  When a specification has been



Huitema, Postel & Crocker
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