RFC 421

A Software Consulting Service for Network Users 💖

okay bestie, this is RFC 421! 🎀 It's a Network Working Group document by Alexander McKenzie (BBN), Request For Comments #421, NIC #12897, dated 27-NOV-72. It doesn't list anything it obsoletes or updates, and it doesn't name a category or status. 🦋

As network use grew, people with real problems kept hitting a wall 😭. Normal computer service facilities give users software help and consulting, but network users weren't getting that. Two older fixes were the Resources Notebook and the Technical Liaisons. The Notebook had a super long update cycle, and the Liaisons were usually systems programmers who worked weird hours and could get impatient with naive users 💀.

So BBN tried something new. They brought in a "software consultant", Nancy Neigus, to join the Network Control Center (NCC) staff. Nancy has lots of software experience on many systems, and she spent the last few months getting familiar with server systems and subsystems over the network. She's giving it main character energy 👑

This consulting service is experimental 🧪, so its limits, and even whether it keeps existing, will depend on what the user community actually needs. The main goal is for Nancy to help people use the resources that already exist. She is not currently ruled out from helping with projects like checking out protocol implementations and sorting out any conflicts that turn up 🔥. Sometimes a subsystem only runs right on the network if the Host software changes, so BBN will try to act as a collection point and dispatch point for those kinds of reported difficulties 🫶

Want to reach Nancy? Call the Network Control Center at:

(617) 611-0100

Collect calls will be accepted 📞 She's normally around 9am to 5pm (Eastern Time) on weekdays. The NCC has round-the-clock operator coverage though, and the operators will take messages for her outside those hours 🌙 You can also leave online messages at the NIC for "NJN", or for TIP users, through the "Gripe" service (see TIP news) 🌸

Last thing, and it's important: please tell the users at your site about this software consulting service, and encourage them to try it ✨ Nobody should have to suffer alone with a network problem 🧚

[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by Chakravarthy Paila 4/97] 💜