{"draft":"draft-huitema-rfc-eval-project-07","doc_id":"RFC8963","title":"Evaluation of a Sample of RFCs Produced in 2018","authors":["C. Huitema"],"format":["HTML","TEXT","PDF","XML"],"page_count":"42","pub_status":"INFORMATIONAL","status":"INFORMATIONAL","source":"INDEPENDENT","abstract":"This document presents the author's effort to understand the delays\r\ninvolved in publishing an idea in the IETF or through the Independent\r\nStream, from the first individual draft to the publication of the\r\nRFC. We analyze a set of randomly chosen RFCs approved in 2018,\r\nlooking for history and delays. We also use two randomly chosen sets\r\nof RFCs published in 2008 and 1998 for comparing delays seen in 2018\r\nto those observed 10 or 20 years ago. The average RFC in the 2018\r\nsample was produced in 3 years and 4 months, of which 2 years and 10\r\nmonths were spent in the working group, 3 to 4 months for IETF\r\nconsensus and IESG review, and 3 to 4 months in RFC production. The\r\nmain variation in RFC production delays comes from the AUTH48 phase.\r\n\r\nWe also measure the number of citations of the chosen RFC using\r\nSemantic Scholar, and compare citation counts with what we know about\r\ndeployment. We show that citation counts indicate academic interest,\r\nbut correlate only loosely with deployment or usage of the\r\nspecifications. Counting web references could complement that.","pub_date":"January 2021","keywords":[],"obsoletes":[],"obsoleted_by":[],"updates":[],"updated_by":[],"see_also":[],"doi":"10.17487\/RFC8963","errata_url":"https:\/\/www.rfc-editor.org\/errata\/rfc8963"}