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

Hi Ed

Thanks for the explanation. But as I explained to Cynthia, "org-name:"
and "country:" are very different attributes. The org-name is just a
free text label by which an organisation is known. Whatever label is
specified, people know what its purpose is, even if the value is not
verified by the NCC. With country, the country codes have a well
defined meaning, but when entered by users no one knows what it's
purpose is. Is it the country where the end user is legally based, as
with the NCC verified values? Is it where their servers are based, or
maybe where the majority of their assigned addresses are used, but
perhaps not all of them. We know from the "country:" attribute in the
resource objects that people will interpret this information and often
assign the wrong purpose to it. The RIPE NCC will spend the next 20
years telling people you cannot reliably use (a subset of) this data
for purpose A or B...

cheers
denis
co-chair DB-WG



On Thu, 26 Jan 2023 at 11:54, Edward Shryane <eshryane at ripe.net> wrote:
>
> 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
>