[staplung]

A bit of lore that I learned in my networking class in college was that the RFC name was chosen as tongue in cheek in that by the time a proposal gets to the RFC stage, comments are very much not appreciated. You're supposed to comment well before that point.

No idea if that bit of lore is true but it is certainly the case that RFCs are usually the final word on the relevant standard. In fact, once they get their ID, RFCs cannot be modified or rescinded; only superseded by another RFC.

[jaza]

Finally I understand why RFCs are served with the Do-Not-Comment header!

[dogleash]

That's apocryphal, the name just lasted beyond the original workflow of a now 55 year old publishing system.

The idea that a published RFC is a final word is a newer idea too. Yeah, you can't modify an RFC, you have to publish a newer one, but that was a pretty good way of doing distributed change control in 1969.

[SilasX]

Then they should be renamed CFCs (closed for comments).

[telgareith]

But CFCs are banned!