[db-wg] country codes in the RIPE Database (was: ORGANISATION country code)

Hi Denis,

> On 24 Jan 2023, at 17:19, denis walker via db-wg <db-wg at ripe.net> wrote:
> 
> Colleagues
> 
> Following on from Havard's comments below I would like to expand the
> discussion to consider the general use of country codes in the RIPE
> Database. As I tend to write long emails that many people don't read,
> I'll summarise my main points first then expand on the details for
> those who want it.
> 
> My suggestions for the community to consider are these:
> 1/ The country: attribute in ORGANISATION objects is only used to
> specify the legal address country of organisations (including
> individuals) holding internet resources and is tied to the country
> values in the extended delegated stats file. These values are
> maintained by the RIPE NCC. This is what the community agreed to when
> they accepted the implementation plan for NWI-10.
> 
> 2/ The country: attribute in ORGANISATION objects cannot be set by
> users to meaningless, undefined values for other reasons, as this was
> not in the agreed implementation plan.
> 

When we introduced NWI-10 we initially did not allow end users to add, update or remove a "country:" attribute on an organisation at all.

However we decided to allow users to update the "country:" attribute on organisations not referenced by resources allocated or assigned by the RIPE NCC, because in this case the attribute value is not maintained by the RIPE NCC, and it is in line with how we treat other attributes such as "org-name:". There is no validation done on "org-name:" either if the organisation is not referenced from any resources issued by the RIPE NCC, it can be set freely by the user.

If the DB-WG wishes us to return to not allowing end users to update "country:" on an organisation at all, then we will do that.

Regards
Ed Shryane
RIPE NCC