Subject: Humour RFCs

From: "Mareline Sheldon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 21:59:24 +0530

Hi,
 I remember there exists a RFC on the etymology of the term "foo" and
 "foo_bar". Similarly there exists RFCs 1149 and 2549 [Avian Carriers] which
 nobody will ever implement :-)
 (Ofcourse i heard that some linux enthusiasts actually tried to implement
 rfc 2549). Is anybody aware of more such "humour" RFCs ??

 Regards,
Mary

_________________________________________________________
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From: "clarke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:09:29 -0400

RFC 2324: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP/1.0)

clarke

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:10:43 -0400

>  rfc 2549). Is anybody aware of more such "humour" RFCs ??

Look in rfc-index.txt for publication dates of the form Apr-1-NNNN.

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

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From: Edward Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:22:46 -0400

> nobody will ever implement :-)

1149 has been implemented. See: http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

> rfc 2549). Is anybody aware of more such "humour" RFCs ??

Just about any one published on any April 1.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edward Lewis                                                NAI Labs
Phone: +1 443-259-2352                      Email: [email-masked]

You fly too often when ... the airport taxi is on speed-dial.

Opinions expressed are property of my evil twin, not my employer.

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:44:23 -0700 (PDT)

% 
%  Hi,
%  I remember there exists a RFC on the etymology of the term "foo" and
%  "foo_bar". Similarly there exists RFCs 1149 and 2549 [Avian Carriers] which
%  nobody will ever implement :-)
%  (Ofcourse i heard that some linux enthusiasts actually tried to implement
%  rfc 2549). Is anybody aware of more such "humour" RFCs ??
% 
%  Regards,
% Mary

	Nearly all of the RFCs issued on 01april have some humour content.
	RFC 1149 was implemented.  Check the archives of the latest IETF
	for details.

-- 
--bill

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From: Stephen McHenry <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:56:03 -0700

>  rfc 2549). Is anybody aware of more such "humour" RFCs ??

Yes... search for the date April 1 - all such RFCs (to my knowledge) have 
been published on that date.

Stephen

Stephen McHenry
VP, Engineering/CTO

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 20:57:03 +0200

>  rfc 2549). Is anybody aware of more such "humour" RFCs ??

Unless you're speaking of someone else, I have a little correction:
We didn't TRY to implement rfc 2549, we implemented rfc 1149. If you have
any doubt it's compliant, please state how, so we have a reason to do it
again next year :) (although I'd much rather have a go at another rfc)
--
- Vegard Engen, member of the first RFC1149 implementation team.
                http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

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From: Sandy Wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 15:41:43 -0400

Edward Lewis wrote:
> > Similarly there exists RFCs 1149 and 2549 [Avian Carriers] which

  By the current rules of the game, RFC 1149 cannot be upgraded to BCP
("Best Common Practice") until at least two separate implementations
have been shown to work together with minimal data loss.

  AIUI (does that require definition-at-first-use-in-document?), these
guys (in Bergen, Norway) are waiting for another group to also implement
RFC 1149 for interoperability testing.

  But, the media used in RFC 1149 has a limited range.  So, do we try to
find a second set of nuts^H^H^H^Hresearch scientists in Scandinavia, or
do we find a set of RS's with no useful work to do somewhere else, and
get them to move there until development is done?

-- 
: Unable to locate coffee.  Operator halted.

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From: "Jose Manuel Arronte Garcia" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 15:24:44 -0500

oh yeah!

    And now I should take the risk over the 64 (at least) RFCs published on
april 1st, if is a "serious" or a "humour" RFC...

    Or would you advise NOT to believe in any RFC published on april 1st at
all?

    For us people who don't have ths custom of the april's fool day, is
very, but very unpleasant to find a joke instead of a serious network
reference as in a RFC.

    I thought this was more "serious" matters...

Saludos.
Regards.
_________________________________________
José Manuel Arronte García
Supervisor de Soporte Técnico Helpdesk

Meg@Red Veracruz
Telecomunicaciones y Entretenimiento SA
Av. S. Díaz Mirón 2625-A
Fracc. Moderno
Veracruz Ver. MÉXICO

+52 (2) 923-0400, 923-0410
[email-masked]
http://www.megacable.com.mx
http://www.megared.net.mx

_________________________________________
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity,
 and I'm not sure about the former".        --A. Einstein

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From: Ofer Inbar <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 17:25:18 -0400

For what it's worth, we implemented RFC2321 extensively at The Left
Bank Operation before one of us wrote it up in an RFC (by that point
we had been purchased by a company then called Cohesive).

  --  Cos (Ofer Inbar)              --  [email-masked] [email-masked]
  --  Exodus Professional Services  --         http://www.exodus.net/
  "OSI is a beautiful dream, and TCP/IP is living it!"
   -- Einar Stefferud <[email-masked]>, IETF mailing list, 12 May 1992

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From: "Amarachukwu Nwankpa" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 22:43:22 -0000

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From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:34:48 -0400

> very, but very unpleasant to find a joke instead of a serious network

"RFC" means "Request for comment".  Some RFC's are experimental; some
are full standards, some represent bad ideas that have since been
completely abandoned.  One of the major problems which we have is
people assuming that just because it has an "RFC" label, that it's
automatically something Serious That Must Be Followed.

You need to look at an RFC, and examine its standards status, and even
if it is a full standard, decide whether or not it's applicable to
you.  Assuming that all RFC's are Serious Network Reference is a
really, really, really, really bad idea.  And if April Fool's RFC's
help dispell this aura, and if they help trap unwary companies when
customers insert April Fool's RFC's into RFP's, and to see whether or
not the company tries to assert that their product implements the
Telnet Randomly-Lose option.  It's a really good "is-the-company-clueless 
test".  :-)

						- Ted

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From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:26:04 -0400

Jose Manuel Arronte Garcia wrote:

>or us people who don't have ths custom of the april's fool day, is
I suppose we could add a new category, Humor, and move the joke RFCs 
from Informational to Humor.

Or, better yet, Disinformational.

-- 
/===============================================================\
|John Stracke    | http://www.ecal.com |My opinions are my own. |
|Chief Scientist |==============================================|
|eCal Corp.      |Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop|
[email-masked]|believing in it.                              |
\===============================================================/

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From: "Michael H. Warfield" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 22:36:26 -0400

> Or, better yet, Disinformational.

	Oooo...  I LIKE that!  But I'm still not sure enough people
would TAKE THE HINT.  I remember the day the RFC on the telnet
subliminal option came out.  Way too many people took it seriously
in spite of having a telnet option BYTE of 257.  :-/

	Mike
-- 
 Michael H. Warfield    |  (770) 985-6132   |  [email-masked]
  (The Mad Wizard)      |  (678) 463-0932   |  http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/
  NIC whois:  MHW9      |  An optimist believes we live in the best of all
 PGP Key: 0xDF1DD471    |  possible worlds.  A pessimist is sure of it!

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From: "Jose Manuel Arronte Garcia" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:22:40 -0500

oh yes! some of them are REALLY obvious, like that one on the telnet,
but when I read about the avian carriers (I subscribed to this list on
mid-april) I thought they were for real!

Saludos.
Regards.

Meg@Red Veracruz

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From: Michael Hammer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:38:03 -0400

FYI.  The U.S. Army used carrier pigeons during WWI to
carry messages.  Worked quite well considering the working
conditions.

Speaking of which, why is it that references to the early years of the
Internet seem to downplay the fact that the ARPANET was originally
developed by the U.S. DEFENCE Advance Research Projects Agency
(DARPA)?

Mike

At 12:22 PM 9/13/2001 -0500, Jose Manuel Arronte Garcia wrote:

oh yes! some of them are
REALLY obvious, like that one on the telnet,

but when I read about the avian carriers (I subscribed to this list
on

Saludos.

Regards.

Meg@Red Veracruz

Av. S. Díaz Mirón 2625-A

Fracc. Moderno

Veracruz Ver. MÉXICO

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human
stupidity,

and I'm not sure about the
former".        --A.
Einstein

----- Original Message -----

Cc: <[email-masked]>

Subject: Re: Humour RFCs

> > |John Stracke    |
http://www.ecal.com
|My opinions are my own. |

>   (The Mad Wizard)      |  (678) 463-0932   |

http://www.wittsend.com/mhw/

---

From: Dennis Fazio <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:44:21 -0500

--On Thursday, September 13, 2001 5:38 PM -0400 Michael Hammer 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> FYI.  The U.S. Army used carrier pigeons during WWI to carry messages.
> Worked quite well considering the working conditions.
>
> developed by the U.S. DEFENCE Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA)?

Because from its formation in 1958 until 1972 it was called the Advance 
Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In 1993, Bill Clinton switched it back to 
ARPA. In 1996, the Congress put the D back in again.

Perhaps we should just call it (D)ARPA or maybe Arpadarpa.
--
Dennis Fazio
The Ephemeral Network

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From: Markus Peuhkuri <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Sep 2001 17:05:17 +0300

> really, really, really, really bad idea.  And if April Fool's RFC's

As I lecture (Intenet) standardisation on some course, I always take
these April-1 RFCs as example in emphasing that "Not all RFCs are
standards".  And 1149 is an example of "no idea is too stupid for
someone to implement"-principle.  My colleague -- soon to be Ph.D --
used some time figure out 1926.

BTW: not all Apr-01 RFCs are not jokes, I seems that only few April
     1st RFCs are jokes before 1992

0777 Internet Control Message Protocol. J. Postel. Apr-01-1981.
     (Format: TXT=19407 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC0792) (Updates RFC0760)
     (Status: UNKNOWN)

0894 Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams over Ethernet
     networks. C. Hornig. Apr-01-1984. (Format: TXT=5697 bytes) (Also
     STD0041) (Status: STANDARD)

-- 
Markus Peuhkuri        ! http://www.iki.fi/puhuri/