ARIN Services

Mon Apr 20 23:29:40 UTC 1998

Randy,

Randy Bush writes:
> 
> > it'd be nice if the registries mirror each other.  Unfortunately, the
> > technology to do so does not yet exist [back! back! down! (fighting off
> > another attack of cynicism)].  RIDE -- it's not just a good idea,
> > it's... umm, well, it's a good idea. 
> 
> it was a good idea.  then it decided to be a wonderful expansive design
> by committee, as opposed to sticking to the simple goal.

The goal was simple and the goal is still simple. Proposals were made
to add more features. People (you were one of those people) felt that
this would add too much complexity and that we should stick to our
simple goals. This resulted in deciding to drop any extra features.
Please read the charter & BOF minutes if you are interested in the
facts:

http://www.isi.edu/~davidk/ride

> as we have never seen this kind of committee failure mode before, one can
> understand why this mistake has been made. <dripping sarcasm>

The reasons for failure was a combination of circumstances:

1) I was one of the initiators of this wg (and chaired it), but,
   as you know, had no time, for personal reasons, to work on this
   initiative for several months late last year.
2) The first would not have been a problem if we would have received
   more support in general, and of the regional IP registries in
   particular (note: this is not to blame anyone from the registries,
   we all know that the registries had to deal with a lot of changes
   last year)
3) Messages to the OPS ADs went often unanswered, apparently there was
   discussion whether it should have been in APPS or OPS or not done
   altogether. 
4) This work is not my core business, although very closely related.

Due to all those considerations and heavy workload on my part I
stopped pushing for this to happen ...

And then the latest news:   

5) Last IETF, people came to me, and started pushing that we should
   start working on this again ... 
6) John Curran told he forwarded a wg message before the previous IETF,
   but apparently something went wrong there.
7) We at ISI are working on a specification for routing registry data
   exchange protocols, which has very simular requirements. we will
   talk to the IP registries to see if we can find some common ground
   to save time and work.
8) Three unnamed people of three regional registries and me are talking
9) RPSL support for the RIPE database which I am currently finishing
   does have support for giving hints to whois clients were to find
   certain data when the server cannot find it locally (for domain,
   AS# and NIC handle data, this can be extended to IP data too).
   Whois/web client programs that can resolve those hints are also
   available.

Conclusion:

Sarcasm/cynicism doesn't produce running code. Something will be done
in the form of working code, sooner or later, whether it's inside IETF
or outside. Talk to your regional registry if you would like to have
faster/more progress.

This discussion doesn't really belong on NANOG. Please send me
private E-mail when you have questions/comments/disagreements,

David K.
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