[db-wg] Proposal to remove "referral-by" attribute in "mntner" object or make it optional

Dear working group,

On 16 Sep 2014, at 14:57, Nigel Titley <nigel at titley.com> wrote:
> Agreed, consensus has been reached. Can RIPE NCC action this please?
> 
> Nigel


We plan to implement these changes in conjunction with already planned whois releases for the replacement of "changed" with "last-modified". The removal of "referral-by" was not controversial, so we expect no major issues from this additional change. More importantly, we already plan to use a longer than usual period in the Release Candidate (RC) environment for the more controversial phase 2 of replacing "changed", so separate releases would be somewhat impractical.


Phase 1: "referral-by" becomes optional
=======================================

Shortly after RIPE 69
26 Nov 2014: RC
10 Dec 2014: Production (2 weeks of RC, coincides with the introduction of "last-modified" and "created")

= "referral-by" becomes optional
= updates for MNTNER objects that include "referral-by" are accepted, but warnings are shown



Phase 2: "referral-by" is deprecated
====================================

Two months after RIPE 69
21 Jan 2015: RC
4 Mar 2015: Production (6 weeks of RC, coincides with "changed" becoming optional)

= "referral-by" is no longer accepted in updates
= "referral-by" is removed from all MNTNER objects
= "last-modified" is not updated, since this is not a semantic change
= "referral-by" is still shown for old versions

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about this.


Kind regards,


Tim Bruijnzeels

Assistent Manager Software Engineering
RIPE NCC