wet-behind-the-ears whippersnapper seeking advice on building a nationwide network

Tue Sep 20 23:34:49 UTC 2011

Randy is right that ARIN has missed a step here.

It is unfortunate that there is no tool in existence that would test
conformance of a whois server, and with hindsight, it would have been
a good idea for ARIN to sponsor such a tool on one of the open source
repo sites like github or googlecode.

Instead, various people have encoded bits of the knowledge of how
whois should work, into their own private and closed source systems so
nobody, including ARIN, has a good way to test conformance of any
system changes that they make.

We can only hope that in future, protocol definitions and protocol
testing tools will be developed in a more open fashion so that there
is, in fact, an issue tracker where anyone can open a ticket and
complain about something that appears to be a bug. I don't think ARIN
should be doing issue tracking like this, or closed source
development, when there are so many open source tools available.
Bitbucket and Codeplex are another couple that come to mind.

-- Michael Dillon

On 18 September 2011 07:49, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
>>>>> one to post overly aggressive defensive messages on nanog
>>>> I am not convinced that Mr. Bush is best placed to comment on this
>>>> particular issue.
>>> you seem to have a problem differentiating defense from offense.  i
>>> recommend you not play chess.  :)
>> Randy is perfectly right in expressing his concerns about the registry
>> system that we've built (as long as its on a mailing list which
>> supports the topic), since we're doing a function on behalf of the
>> entire Internet community and spending everyone's money in the
>> process.  While it may not matter to him a bit, I'll defend his (and
>> anyone's else right) to critique the quality and cost effectiveness of
>> the job we're doing.
>
> thanks.  :)
>
> i suspect some folk may be missing a few clues here.  first is that you
> and i have been friends since the late '80s.  second is that i was a
> founding board member of arin.  and third, there is the concept of the
> loyal opposition.
>
> i just think that we, as a culture, have let things get waaaay out of
> whack.  john is paid to defend the status grow.
>
> randy
>
>