On 12 Aug 2019, at 3:26 PM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 04, 2019 at 12:12:48AM -0700, Stephen Satchell wrote:
"The rules" have been around for years, and are codified in the RFCs that are widely published and available to all at zero cost. (That wasn't always true, as it wasn't until the DDN Protocol Handbook volumes were published in 1985 that the RFCs were available to everyone. I seem to recall there was an FTP site that provided the RFC documents before that, but my memory is hazy on that.)
IIRC, the CSnet CIC provided an RFC-by-mail service in the mid to late 1980's. It allowed anyone to request any RFC by number, e.g., sending it "rfc123" would result in a response containing that RFC.
Indeed - it was the "CSNET Information Server" <info-server@sh.cs.net>, and it not only served RFCs but also a variety of other DDN/NSF/Merit/IETF internet informational documents... With the shutdown of the CSNET Coordination and Information Center (CSNET CIC) in 1991, the email-based info-server function was transferred to the NSF Network Service Center (NNSC) <info-server@nnsc.nsf.net> where it operated until of all the various Internet informational/registry/directory services were transferred into the consolidated InterNIC contract. FYI, /John