[jlivingood]

An RFC is not always a standard - often they are simply 'informational'. For us, when we wrote the document, it was a way to document as transparently as possible how the system worked so that folks would not need to speculate about it and for us to explain the rationale and alternatives considered. This seemed to me at the time far better than being evasive about it. And a request for comment is often a way to solicit exactly that - good comments (e.g. suggestions on alternatives). In this case, it has led in part to things like the IETF's new(ish) CAPPORT working group being created to develop a better Internet-wide standard for how to interact with so-called captive portals. See https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/capport/about/ for more details and feel free to join the mailing list and contribute!