
36
The ABCs of TCP/IP
illustrates the previously mentioned time track for the development of an RFC
that represents both an Internet and TCP/IP protocol suite standard. As
indicated in Exhibit 1, a minimum of ten months is required for an RFC to
be standardized, and many times the process can require several years.
RFC Details
Once issued, an RFC is never revised. Instead, an RFC is updated by new
RFCs. When this situation occurs, the new RFC will indicate that it obsoletes
or updates a previously published one. This means that if an error occurs in
a published RFC, it cannot be changed. Instead, a revised RFC can be written
that obsoletes the one ...