automatic DB cleanup proposal

George Michaelson writes:
> I am worried that there may be *external* referencees to objects, and while
> we have no 'contractual' obligation it might not be nice to do this
> to people without some engagement but I expect most people would welcome
> losing a path to spam.

external references to DB objects are never going to work reliably.
I don't see why we should try ever so hard in making something work
when we can't succeed.  Also, we would have to argue with data privacy
agencies all over Europe as to why we need to leave an object in the
DB that's referenced only from an external source.  ``They should
create their own object in their own DB'' would be an almost certain
response from the data privacy guys.

> As to automatic sweeping, I think there are problems with link counting
> which are similar to those we've faced in discussing cross-database linkage
> and references. Too many risks of the link count getting out of whack.

Nope.  The RIPE DB already has a mechanism that prevents objects
from being deleted if there are still references to it.  So, a
double check is already in place.  :)  The generation of the
reference counter should be done by counting references in the DB
anyway, instead of mere incrementing or decrementing the existent
counter.  This way the DB resyncs every time a person or role object
is touched.

> I think you could use it as a guide to a sweep, but not as a determinant
> without some review and other checks. Eg to trigger more exhaustive checks
> to see if there are are references in twisty ways.

The only other precaution that should be taken IMHO is to honor
any applicable mnt-nfy and notify attribute.

-- 
Ulf Kieber                                 email: kieber at gatel.net
Senior Network Engineer                    voice: +49-69-299896-21
Global Access Telecommunications, Inc.     fax  : +49-69-299896-40
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