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

On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 02:40:35PM +0100, Denis Walker wrote:

Dear Denis

> As this has never been agreed can we determine what is considered to be 
> 'announced well in advance'? Would you consider this condition satisfied 
> if:

As this is not a surprise, I'm not the only one here. ;-)
I do prefer some kind of discussion about that and either agreed
consensus or (if the consensus could not be reached) the decision made
by WG Chairs.

> -it is announced on the DB WG mailing list when consensus for a change has 
> been reached
> -a reminder is sent to the DB WG mailing list after 1 month
> -a final reminder is sent to the DB WG mailing list 1 week before the 
> (minimum) 2 month boundary when the change is completed
> -during this time, if the change can be made in a non fatalistic way, it 
> may be implemented earlier
>
> by non fatalistic I mean in this example we can deprecate the 
> "referral-by:" attribute, but when any update to a MNTNER object is 
> received containing this attribute the software strips it out and adds a 
> warning message, but does not fail the update.

I can imagine that there is some kind of software which query DB after
successful update (with or without warning) just to update some internal
state. In this scenario, this could fail since this software could
expect different object schema then this one which it received.

> The announcement period would be a minimum of 2 months. If it is a complex 
> change requiring significant engineering effort to be scheduled it may take 
> more time. In this case the timing of the announcements may be adjusted.
>
> If the change affects other working groups, say for example syntax of a 
> routing or dns related object, other appropriate working group mailing 
> lists will be CC'ed.

All this seems very reasonable to me (including proposed time
boundaries). Hope there will be some discussion or at least some votes
for/against there.

Piotr

-- 
gucio -> Piotr Strzyżewski
E-mail: Piotr.Strzyzewski at polsl.pl