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

On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 01:24:02PM +0100, Denis Walker wrote:

> Historically, technical changes like this to the RIPE Database, that
> are not considered to affect any existing policy or require a new
> policy (at the discretion of the WG chairs), have been discussed on
> the DB WG mailing list or at the DB session at a RIPE Meeting. If the
> DB WG chairs agree that a consensus is reached by the community as a
> result of these discussions the WG chairs can approve the RIPE NCC
> taking the action.

Based on the feedback from this group it seems a good idea start
dialogue about phasing out "referral-by" in one way or another. So far
we have not heard anything positive about referral-by and no statements
supporting its continued existance, I personally would not mind getting
rid of this attribute. 

DB-WG (and RIPE DB Staff), what, in your vision is the least destructive
way is to deprecate a mandatory attribute? I've compiled some things
that came to mind, between each step a pause of sorts can be applied.

    phase 0) reach consensus in some way (our process now)

    phase 1) Change status from mandatory to optional, no errors are
    thrown in any scenario, whether MNTER objects contain the
    referral-by attribute or not.

    phase 2) Have API/Mailrobot/etc throw soft warning (but accept data)
    when attribute is present when updating an existing MNTER object.

    phase 3) Omit the attribute when presenting data to whois/api
    clients and omit the attribute in the webupdates interface.

    phase 4) Deny creation of _new_ MNTER objects containing a
    referral-by attribute: throw hard error.

    phase 5) Deny updating of _existing_ MNTER objects with a
    referral-by attribute: throw hard error.

    phase 6) delete all referral-by attributes from database (However,
    still show the attribute when clients request old versions with
    'diff'). 

Thoughts? 

Kind regards,

Job

- 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 873 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: </ripe/mail/archives/db-wg/attachments/20140317/fae39608/attachment.sig>