Greg Hennessy wrote:
The age is irrelevant. Do you suggest that the RFCs for tcp and smtp are
somehow different/out of date due to their age ?

No, they are still active Internet Standards. The document you quote was
never an Internet Standard.


Nonsense,

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc793.html

I don't see what referring to this again accomplishes. It's still an
Internet Standard (STD 7).

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc821.html

This is no longer an Internet Standard, having been obsoleted by RFC
2821 (STD 10).

The original document you quoted on netiquette was never an Internet
standard. They are all listed on the same site you referred to at
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/std/std-index.html.

If you believe that all RFCs are normative, then you must find RFC 1796,
"Not All RFCs Are Standards" quite paradoxical:

} It is a regrettably well spread misconception that publication as an
} RFC provides some level of recognition. It does not, or at least not
} any more than the publication in a regular journal. In fact, each
} RFC has a status, relative to its relation with the Internet
} standardization process: Informational, Experimental, or Standards
} Track (Proposed Standard, Draft Standard, Internet Standard), or
} Historic.

The document you quote is informational only.
--
Michael Hoffman