Ripe change to whois

Hello.

> The design of this feature was specified some time ago by Carol Orange and 
> Wilfried Woeber (please see http://www.ripe.net/meetings/ripe/ripe-27/pres/rout
> e/referral/) and discussed in the RIPE db-wg mailing list (please see 
> http://www.ripe.net/mail-archives/db-wg/19970501-19970601/threads.html)

Oh. Fine. Do I get it right that this was discussed and agreed on
more than a year ago? Argh.

This change breaks too many things, imnsho, and it seems again that if
you are not able to make it to the RIPE meetings, you have lost. A
special announce would have been most helpful (an explicit one, stating
this).

> As a side note I would like to stress that the RIPE Database is NOT the source 
> of authoritative data for domain objects (although we are happy to provide a 
> repository for TLD administrators).
> This is UNLIKE the internic whose business is to sell names.

Oh. Fine. whois.nic.de *cough* barely ever working... Weak argument.
And If I wanted to know the data about the domain one level higher,
I can do so myself, I don't need to get it told to me by whois, I
want to know whether crab.de (bad example, it really exists) is in
the DB already or not.

> The RIPE NCC is therefore acting according to users directives that were 
> discussed and agreed on an open way.

Hitchhiker's Guide, anyone? *sigh*

This was a not-so-nice change, really. Consider this a statement of
disagreement with the way the change took place. Ok, one more mailling
list to follow... Time to sell.

Regards,
Alexander Koch

-- 
SGH Internet Division, Alexander Koch, Systems Administration
Hannover, Germany, Phone +49 511 909198 0, Fax +49 511 391307