IETF Fool Day

IETF’s RFC process has almost always been a good place to get a laugh, come April 1st – and this year is not an exception: I present to you RFC 5241 – Naming Rights in IETF Protocols which discusses (to some merit, one might say) the requirements and methods by which the IETF might lease protocol field names to commercial interests.

A few examples presented by the authors of the RFC include: Princess Cruise Lines Port Number, Sharpie Marker field and White & Day Mortuary Time-to-live. Additionally RFC 5241 scores bonus points by referring to RFC 3514 :-).

Determining whether RFC 5242 is an April Fool’s post is left as an exercise to the reader.

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