18 months

[Erik Guttman]

On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> --On torsdag, januar 09, 2003 14:58:24 +0100 Brian E Carpenter 
> <brian at hursley.ibm.com> wrote:
> >> Another example, which I personally consider more fit for the "failure"
> >> bin (because of lack of industry pickup): SVRLOC.
> >
> > Actually, I see increasing signs of SLP being prerequisite for other
> > protocols, and it is finally getting supported. It's just had a long
> > infancy. This case clearly tests the 18 month "rule" and finds it false.
> > But I have to agree, this one was sloooow.
> 
> erik guttman corrected my history - the WG actually started around 1991, 
> and concluded in May 2001. Slow it was.

With all due respect for those who participated in SVRLOC, I think it is
fair to say that the WG was effective only from 95-99.  Before 95, the
WG produced lots of drafts but with near zero mailing list activity.
Read:  little real IETF participation.  After 1999, the WG no longer met
and was in a holding pattern, waiting to get the last drafts through
IESG comments and queues. 

This indicates a few failure modes:  

(1) SVRLOC should probably have not been allowed to continue as it 
    failed to produce.

(2) SVRLOC should have been allowed to go into a 'dormant' or 
    'pending last draft publication or abandmonment' state once all
    documents had been submitted to the IESG and the only remaining
    effort was to answer remaining IESG comments (on the mailing list)

(3) RFC 2165, 1997 should have come out in 1996.  We experienced
    a full year's delay due to miscommunication between WG chair, IESG,
    secretariat and RFC editor.  Other SLP documents fell through
    the cracks for 2-4 months at a time, too.

Erik