misleading use of the connect: field in inetnum: object

Hi Daniel,

>the real problem with the "connect" attribute is that it still is the
>badly defined kludge it has been from the start.  I can say so because I
>invented it.  Today we have a well defined and agreed way of specifying
>the information you want: It is called ripe-81 by the document fans and
>"The Routing Registry" by afficionados.

I had one and only one basic concern: when we put info into the DB,
		   this info should HELP and not CONFUSE.
I agree with you that "connect:" is maybe far from optimal.

>In my opinion we should put our efforts in getting the RR populated
>rather than trying to specify how to use an un-specifyable kludge.

So now I've got another concern: populating the RR helps the "afficionados",
but probably doesn't help the (end-)user in finding out what he/she can
expect. I'd assume people are still thinking in terms of NORDUnet, NSF, RIPE
and not in terms of ASxxx and ASyyy.  And the basic issue remains - you can
just as well put some string into the "as-*:" fields and still have only
EARN-E-Mail connectivity...

>The original plan was to keep connect alive with the only legal value of
>LOCAL.  Maybe we shouldn't even do this. An item for discussion at the RIPE
>meeting!

Definitely!
And thanks for spending some minutes on it.

Cheers, Wilfried.