The Network Working Group's development of open technical documentation - the RFC - was a necessary step to technical advancement. Steve Crocker explains the importance of openness in a developmental situation:
"The environment we were operating in was one of open research. The only payoff available was to have good work recognized and used. Software was generally considered free. Openness wasn't an option; it just was." (Crocker, 1993c)
The NWG's work was important (THE?) to the development of the ARPANET. Their work paved the way for the development of TCP/IP, when more capacity was needed and other problems arose.
I would call the RFC one of the Heralding Achievements of the NWG. It represents the forward looking view which these people had and it proved to succeed. The principles which embody RFC 3 foreshadowed the success of TCP/IP from NCP's influence. Both TCP/IP and NCP were developed in the field. A version of the protocols would be released for experimentation and......
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