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

First of all, thanks to Martin for bringing this up (again)
and to Denis for explaining the history and the current situation.

Denis Walker wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> Lets be clear that there are two very separate issues here:

Indeed :-)

> -making a change to functionality

I guess this is an easy one, as there is no real (i.e. operational) need
to have this attribute. As it was stated already, the governing RFCs are
mostly outdated by now, and some of the architectural aspects in the set
have never been implemented.

But this maybe another aspect for this list of items, like:

- have a look at the RFCs and bring the set in line with reality, and/or
  re-label as historic (mandate for a TF??)

> -deploying new software including any change

Yes, and for this one I have two thoughts in my mind -

° in the interest of not making this too lengthy, boring and complex, we
  may want to limit the number of phases to the bare minimum!

° from a consistency point of view, I don't like the idea of "hiding"
  attributes which are present in an object, by a particular interface
  for updates. I think this would be a bad habit and can cause major
  confusion for people who (locally) keep an "authoritative" copy of an
  object; or use a diferent path for updates.

With that in mind I would - roughly - propose to
1) agree to deprecate the attribute,
2) make that widely known (on the DB list and probably on the Services list), then
3) bounce (soft/hard?) all update requests including that attribute, and
4) eventually remove the attribute from all objects in a bulk operation.
5) Done :-)

I think we have used such an approach already.

And to explicitly state the obvious, I am also in favour of getting rid of
that beast :-)

Regrads,
Wilfried

> For the second issue, we will follow our now accepted deployment
> process. If the change is made in several steps, each step is a change
> to the software and will be deployed according to the accepted process.
> 
> There is not much point monitoring updates to MNTNER objects with a
> "referral-by:" during the transition phase as most updates are done with
> Webupdates. This will not include "referral-by:" in the template and
> will not allow it to be added. So unless they do an update in text area
> mode and manually add a "referral-by:" there will not be any.
> 
> Regards
> Denis Walker
> Business Analyst
> RIPE NCC Database Team