Who wrote the first Request for Comments (RFC 1)?

Steve Crocker wrote RFC 1, the first Request for Comments document, published on April 7, 1969.

Titled “Host Software,” RFC 1 addressed how computers, or hosts, on the experimental ARPANET should communicate. Crocker was a UCLA graduate student working under Leonard Kleinrock, and he helped coordinate the Network Working Group, whose members were developing the network’s early software and protocols.

The document was intentionally informal and exploratory. It presented tentative agreements, open questions, and proposed experiments rather than a finished technical standard. That collaborative spirit gave the RFC series its name: documents invited engineers to comment, criticize, and improve ideas.

Jon Postel later became one of the most important editors and administrators of the RFC series, which is why he is sometimes mistakenly credited with RFC 1. Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf were also central figures in later Internet architecture, especially TCP/IP, but neither wrote the first RFC. Crocker’s early document helped establish a tradition that remains part of Internet engineering today.