Appendix A. Acknowledgements

The syntax for ABNF was originally specified in RFC 733. Ken L. Harrenstien, of SRI International, was responsible for re-coding the BNF into an Augmented BNF that makes the representation smaller and easier to understand.

This recent project began as a simple effort to cull out the portion of RFC 822 that has been repeatedly cited by non-email specification writers, namely the description of Augmented BNF. Rather than simply and blindly converting the existing text into a separate document, the working group chose to give careful consideration to the deficiencies, as well as benefits, of the existing specification and related specifications made available over the last 15 years, and therefore to pursue enhancement. This turned the project into something rather more ambitious than was first intended. Interestingly, the result is not massively different from that original, although decisions, such as removing the list notation, came as a surprise.

The current round of specification was part of the continuing effort to refine the ABNF notation. The contributions of Jerome Abela, Harald Alvestrand, Pete Resnick, and members of the DRUMS working group are gratefully acknowledged.