[ih] Internet Draft: when and why exactly 6 months?

[Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim]

I wrote before:
> But, I still have no idea on since when and why exactly
> there exists "a 6 months expire limit" for Internet Drafts.

Well, I still have no idea on "when" and "why" EXACTLY
there exist a six month expire limit. The earliest 
artifact that I could find is RFC-1310 section 2.4 
(March 1992):
  "An Internet Draft that is published as an RFC is removed 
   from the Internet Draft directory.  A document that has 
   remained unchanged in the Internet Drafts directory for 
   more than six months without being recommended by the 
   IESG for publication as an RFC is simply removed from 
   the Internet Draft directory.  At any time, an Internet 
   Draft may be replace by a more recent version of the same
   specification, restarting the six-month timeout period."
However, it does not say anything about when and why
6 months. Why not 5 or 9 months (ca. 1 or 2 IETF meeting 
intervals)?

BTW, 
* I consider anything before mid 1990s (when .com < .others)
  as internet pre-history.
* There are some (many?) "recycled expired I-Ds" that become 
  RFC after reincarnation. Example: BCP-1.

regards,

-- 
Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim - VLSM-TJT - http://rms46.vlsm.org
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