Re: IETF-51 WhoisFix BoF Announcement

> I'm gonna consider myself a member of the non-enlightened camp with
respect
> to uses of whois outside of domain registries/registrars and IP and
routing
> registries.  If it isn't too much trouble, can you list a few of the
> applications or application types outside of these areas and the possible
> improvements of to whois which would help them?

A number come to mind - the most apparent of which typically use whois as a
simplified interface to a more complex data directory internal to
corporations (ie telephone/employee lookup services). As far as specific
improvements go, I have none except the hope that whatever the BoF proposes
to (hopefully) undertake doesn't break existing deployments. Klensin made a
great point last time round that speaks directly to my point - (forgive my
brutal paraphrase) "don't propose to understand what people do with these
drafts behind closed doors - try to understand how what you are proposing
will break what those people do." Regardless of his specific words, his
point was extremely clear - at least from my standpoint.

This is why I brought up 954 and 1580 in the first place. RFC 954 is a very
precise statement of what whois actually is. 1580 discusses specific
deployments. If the work is focused on 954, then it goes without saying that
the statements in 1580 (and the brother of 1580 that a corporation has
writtent to describe their internal service deployment) should still hold
true post-fix.

-rwr