[HN Gopher] The "simple" 38 step journey to getting an RFC
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       The "simple" 38 step journey to getting an RFC
        
       Author : greyface-
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2024-12-05 11:53 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (blog.benjojo.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (blog.benjojo.co.uk)
        
       | petercooper wrote:
       | Every post this guy writes is illuminating - strongly recommend
       | checking out his archive if you like digging into the weeds.
        
         | rediguanayum wrote:
         | +1. I've written one non-controversial RFC, and this is exactly
         | it. What's missing is if the area you're working in
         | controversial or has many, many stakeholders. For example of
         | this just look at the DMARCbis last call happening now. There
         | apparently is an art form to getting controversial work
         | published by the IETF. It can by garnering a lot of support,
         | but few well meaning voices can sink that effort as well.
         | Working for a big tech company can hamper your efforts as well
         | as some of those well meaning activists don't like big tech. I
         | feel that work sponsored by small and medium sized companies
         | has the best shot of actually happening.
        
       | convolvatron wrote:
       | Missing from this discussion is that once you identify a WG that
       | might possibly be a good host for your work, you should really
       | spend some time lurking on the mailing list and understand what
       | efforts they already have, and more importantly what their agenda
       | is. They have a trajectory, and while the WG might consider
       | proposals technically within their charter, it helps if this
       | draft is sympathetic and not redundant with work that's ongoing.
        
       | ucarion wrote:
       | I didn't know RFCs are being written with xml2rfc directly
       | anymore; I was under the impression most work was now happening
       | through https://github.com/cabo/kramdown-rfc, which lets you
       | hand-write markdown instead of hand-writing XML.
       | 
       | And then https://github.com/martinthomson/i-d-template, though a
       | bit elaborate, does automate a lot of IETF stuff, including use
       | of kramdown-rfc.
        
       | science4sail wrote:
       | How crazy and bureaucratic the Internet has grown!
       | 
       | RFC #1 was basically a one-pager: https://www.rfc-
       | archive.org/getrfc?rfc=1#gsc.tab=0
       | 
       | RFC #371 was literally a conference advertisement:
       | https://www.rfc-archive.org/getrfc?rfc=371#gsc.tab=0
        
         | thih9 wrote:
         | There is even a "List of April Fools' Day RFCs" article on
         | wikipedia:
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day_Request_f...
        
       | EternalFury wrote:
       | If RFCs were RFCs, it would be easier.
       | 
       | But in history, RFCs became loose or strict standards. From that
       | day on, everyone has tried have to their own RFC stamped; because
       | there's an economic advantage to being the standard bearer.
       | 
       | So, the process has become more and more convoluted to avoid
       | having as many "standards" as there are interested parties.
       | 
       | Steve Crocker and Jon Postel must be laughing at us.
        
       | tuveson wrote:
       | Step 1: write an RFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRF
       | RFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFC
       | 
       | Step 2: write an RFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRF
       | RFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFRFC
       | 
       | ...and so on
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-05 23:00 UTC)