[db-wg] PERSON objects in the RIPE Database

denis walker via db-wg wrote on 20/09/2018 13:04:
> This does raise a number of questions:

the requirement for admin-c and tech-c derive from what was thought to 
be useful information to have at hand at the time when network 
registrations were starting out at the InterNIC, way back in the late 
1980s. These token made their way into ripe81 as machine-parseable 
fields, then into ripe181.

This dates from the time when we all had fingerd enabled, for example, 
and when SMTP ETRN and VRFY usually returned something useful, and when 
gopher was hot stuff and when 2mbit/s links were so outrageously fast 
that it was normal to boast about the speed in the DNS PTR records for 
your router interface IP addresses.  Thankfully we've moved on from at 
least some of these things, but they all shared one characteristic: "it 
seemed like a good idea at the time".

Really we have three questions: is what we have both legal and fit for 
purpose? (hard to tell), could we bang heads together to come up with a 
new schema which would be comfortably legally compliant and technically 
fit for purpose? (probably yes), and can we come up with a migration 
plan from one to the other which can be implemented before the heat 
death of the universe? (highly unlikely).

Nick