April fools day RFCs

▼ April fools day is coming up again! Don't let it catch you by surprise. Over the years, a number of RFCs have been published on April first, such as:

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

But not all RFCs stubbornly ignore their publishing day. The first "fools day compatible" RFC dates back to 1978:

0748 Telnet randomly-lose option. M.R. Crispin. Apr-01-1978. (Format:
TXT=2741 bytes) (Status: UNKNOWN)

Probably the most famous of all is RFC 1149, which was updated in RFC 2549:

1149 Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers.
���� D. Waitzman. Apr-01-1990. (Format: TXT=3329 bytes) (Updated by
���� RFC2549) (Status: EXPERIMENTAL)

2549 IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service. D. Waitzman.
���� Apr-01-1999. (Format: TXT=9519 bytes) (Updates RFC1149) (Status:
���� INFORMATIONAL)

It took some time, but in 2001 the Bergen Linux User Group implemented RFC 1149 and carried out some tests.

Can't get enough? Here are more April first RFCs:

RFC 1097, RFC 1217, RFC 1313, RFC 1437, RFC 1438, RFC 1605, RFC 1606, RFC 1607, RFC 1776, RFC 1924, RFC 1925, RFC 1926, RFC 1927, RFC 2100, RFC 2321, RFC 2323, RFC 2324, RFC 2550, RFC 2551, RFC 2795.

Permalink - posted 2002-04-01