Re: Notice to Mariners: loss of navigational aids ("whois consultations")

[Shane Kerr <shane@xxxxxxxx>]

On 2001-09-05 10:57:11 -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
> 
> > OTOH, many people would scream if the RIPE software would change its
> > behaviour.
> 
> but it has!  181+ to rpsl.  the interesting difference is that the
> format of the data (which the ripe application uses the whois protocol
> to transfer) is DOCUMENTED!

I'd like to add not only is it documented, but RPSL is documented in
standards-track RFC's.

As mentioned in the London IETF meeting, the RIPE Whois server does
almost everything requested in terms of features desired from the group
at the BOF (excepting of course things RIPE NCC can't do by itself, such
as standardization and sharing NIC handle data).

Perhaps the easiest tact might be to formalize RPSL extensions to cover
non-routing data.  RIPE already uses such extensions to cover our
registration data.

-- 
Shane
Carpe Diem

p.s. I'm not a big fan of RPSL, but it is already an IETF RFC, is used
     by a fairly large community, and it does work.  ;)