Limerick WG report

[Roderik Muit <]

Unfortunately, the RIPE chair decided that there was too little time
left for a presentation of the Limerick Working Group. So this time it
will have to be done on the RIPE mailinglist.

ACTIVITY REPORT

After the deployment of the limerick object in the RIPE Database,
which was in effect the creation of the first LR (Limerick Registry)
at RIPE, there are no proposals for new activities to be started up in
the Limerick area. There are however some issues that
have come up regarding the functioning of the LR:

- The LR is currently still not in good shape because old-style
  limerick submissions (at the moment stored at
  ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/limericks) are not incorporated in the
  LR. Converting the old style submissions to limerick templates in
  the RIPE Database is outside the direct scope of the RIPE NCC
  activity plan, and also there have been no volunteer efforts or
  separate funding for this, so incorporating the old data in the LR
  is done on a very low priority basis. New submissions will however
  be stored in the LR.

- I have not heard any suggestion so far from the secret Limerick
  Working Group on a uniform naming scheme of the limericks. (This
  might be the effect of nobody knowing who are actually the members
  of this working group.) Currently, limerick submissions that are
  approved by the Limerick Working Group are stored in the LR with the
  following name: LIM-xx-number, where xx is either the number of the
  RIPE meeting or the nic-handle of the author. This is however not a
  standard, so it does not provide for a real good way to search for
  limericks in the LR.
  
  (I would like to point you to the following options that are the best
  alternative so far when trying to find a certain limerick:
  - inverse lookup; try 'whois -h whois.ripe.net -i author <nic-hdl>'
    for limericks from a certain author, or
    'whois -h whois.ripe.net -i admin-c LIM1-RIPE' for all limericks
    approved by the Limerick Working Group.
  - a copy of the full LR is stored at: 
    ftp://ftp.ripe.net/ripe/dbase/split/ripe.db.li.gz)

- All limericks approved by the Limerick Working Group are ofcourse
  protected by a maintainer object to protect people from tampering
  with them. However, because of the lack of any hierarchy in the
  limerick space, hierarchical authorisation cannot currently be
  deployed.  There were vague suggestions of creating a 'root limerick
  object' which would provide for hierarchical authorisation, but no
  definitive proposals from the Limerick Working Group have been seen
  yet.

  This has the effect that anybody can create limerick objects without
  anybody being notified. A (manual) investigation of the current
  state of the LR shows that this is currently not a problem, although
  at a later stage this manual checking does not scale well.  Only one
  limerick has been found that seems to have been inserted without the
  Limerick Working Group knowing:

limerick:    LIM-NEWOBJECT
descr:       Wait until Wilfried hears about this!
text:        An object appears from the blue
text:        Defined by goodness knows who
text:        There's no doubt a feeling
text:        Of insider dealing
text:        If the database working group knew.
admin-c:     MN131
author:      MN131
remarks:     No comment
notify:      mnorris@localhost
changed:     mnorris@localhost 960513
source:      RIPE

NEW SUBMISSIONS

A clear pattern can be seen in the number of submissions of
limericks. It looks somewhat like this:


          
Number of limericks
  
   5   |                      # 
   4   |       #              # #              #
   3   |       #              # #              #
   2   |       #              # #              #
   1   |       #              # # #  #         #
   0   |########################################
       +----------------------------------------
         Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep    -> time
        1995  1996


Most RIPE members will see a clear parallel with the RIPE
meetings. The irregularities in this pattern were all caused by a
sudden raise of activity emerging inside British Telecom.

As usual, the number of submissions, via various channels, reached its
peak at a tuesday night.  It seems we are getting more activity, and
quality is also quite high, which breaks with the trend in 1995 where
one person took credit for almost all submissions.

New submissions follow below. (JS268-RIPE == Jens Schweikhardt, by the way.)

limerick:    LIM-NT13-1
descr:       RIPE24 dinner
text:     At a RIPE meeting, held in Berlin,
text:     The meal was unusual, the din
text:     Of the two serenaders
text:     Whose repertoire made us
text:     All smile and want to join in
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      NT13
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960529
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-NT13-2
text:     A document RIPE-181
text:     Tells how everything ought to be done
text:     There are objects galore
text:     Heaven knows what they're for
text:     'Cos they're all out of date, every one.
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      NT13
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960529
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-NT13-3
text:     The document RIPE-104
text:     Goes on longer than ever before
text:     If you want an address
text:     And your network's a mess
text:     Then Daniel will get very sore
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      NT13
remarks:     Great limerick, but the draft document RIPE-104++
remarks:     is now called RIPE-140...
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960529
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-NT13-4
text:     BGP is a protocol smart
text:     On Ciscos its really an art
text:     If you screw up your MED
text:     And your router goes dead
text:     Then you're better off with a restart
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      NT13
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960529
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-NT13-5
descr:       On the subject of joining the limericks-wg
text:     The limericks writers at RIPE
text:     Are nervous and shun any hype
text:     You can't get on their list
text:     And find out what you've missed
text:     'Cos none of them knows what to type
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      NT13
remarks:     The limericks-wg members have no comment. Their identity
remarks:     remains a big mistery...
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960604
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-NT13-6
text:     If your secret just musn't get out
text:     And it's email you're worried about
text:     There's a method you see
text:     You can use PGP
text:     And send it without any doubt
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      NT13
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960716
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-RIPE25-1
text:     If we did not write a limerick
text:     Mike Norris might feel a little sick
text:     He left without a trace
text:     No one can take his place
text:     Nontheless we tried a rhyme quick
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      LIM1-RIPE
remarks:     Author is actually a group:
remarks:     Brian Renaud, Ambrose Magee, Joachim Schmitz, Juergen Rauschenbach
remarks:     Produced at RIPE dinner ofcourse
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960925
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-RIPE25-2
descr:       Referring to an announcement on ripe-list shortly before RIPE25
text:     Peter has a SONET line
text:     He thinks this is mighty fine
text:     He says the cell
text:     must go to hell
text:     I wish his bathroom was mine
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      LIM1-RIPE
remarks:     Author is actually a group:
remarks:     Brian Renaud, Ambrose Magee, Joachim Schmitz, Juergen Rauschenbach
remarks:     Produced at RIPE dinner ofcourse
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960925
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-RIPE25-3
descr:       Referring to the Database Workshop at RIPE25
text:     Our Ignorance was rendered moot
text:     by slides drawn amazingly cute
text:     To demonstrate series
text:     of database queries
text:     Ms. Orange used all sorts of fruit
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      JS268-RIPE
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960925
source:      RIPE

limerick:    LIM-RIPE25-4
text:     There once was a group with potential
text:     It's growth has been deemed exponential
text:     The database working 
text:     and no more bugs lurking
text:     It's problems are purely financial
admin-c:     LIM1-RIPE
author:      JS268-RIPE
mnt-by:      LIM-MNT
changed:     limerick-wg@localhost 960925
source:      RIPE