[ih] Origin of "best effort"

[Guy Almes]

Hi Brian,
   This is actually an interesting question.
   During the 1990s we had a discussion in which this phrase came up, 
used in the now-typical networking sense.
   One colleague in the conversation, a lawyer, who had done work in the 
construction industry, found the usage very odd because, he said, in 
contracts within that industry the phrase had a specific meaning and it 
obliged a person/company to a very very high standard of "best effort". 
In that context, for example, it might oblige a company to spend 
money/effort to a degree that would keep a promise but ruin any hope for 
making money in the deal.  He noted that we computer engineers were 
using the term in an almost opposite (and, to him, an ironic) sense, 
viz., "do whatever is normal, but *not* heroic, and if it works, good 
and if it doesn't, don't worry about it".

   If the phrase is connected that older "contract language" usage, it 
would indeed be interesting to see how it came to have almost a reversal 
or sense.

	-- Guy

On 1/18/17 2:34 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> I learnt very early on that the Internet offered a "best effort" service
> for the delivery of datagrams.
>
> Where did that meme come from, and when?
>
> The earliest trace I found in a quick trawl was 1986 (RFC992). But RFC791
> doesn't mention it, and defined TOS, such that all packets were *not* assumed
> to be created equal. The 1984 Saltzer et al paper doesn't mention it either.
>
> (RFC768 does say that UDP delivery is "not guaranteed" but that is not
> the same thing as "best effort".)
>
> The question is of interest because some analyses of network neutrality,
> including a student dissertation I was reviewing yesterday, conflate the
> end-to-end principle with best-effort packet delivery.
>
> Regards
>      Brian
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