<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Hello all,<br><br>Below you can find the announcement from the IESG on the formation of the IETF Web Extensible Internet Registration Data Service (WEIRDS) Working Group. </div><div>The aim of the working group is to work on a unified whois request-and-response format based on the web technologies. <br><br>If you find the subject interesting, please kindly participate in discussions using the pointers in the original announcement. <br><br>The RIPE NCC will do its best to make sure requirements and current practices of our community are reflected in the discussions but your direct participation is really appreciated.<br><br>Kind regards,<br>Kaveh.<br><br>---<br>Kaveh Ranjbar,<br>RIPE NCC Database Group Manager</div><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">IESG Secretary <<a href="mailto:iesg-secretary@ietf.org">iesg-secretary@ietf.org</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>[weirds] WG Action: Web Extensible Internet Registration Data Service (weirds)</b><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">May 15, 2012 6:58:40 PM GMT+02:00<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">IETF Announcement List <<a href="mailto:ietf-announce@ietf.org">ietf-announce@ietf.org</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Cc: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><a href="mailto:weirds@ietf.org">weirds@ietf.org</a><br></span></div><br><div>A new IETF working group has been formed in the Applications Area. For additional information, please contact the Area Directors or the WG Chairs.<br><br>Web Extensible Internet Registration Data Service (weirds)<br>----------------------------------------------------------<br>Status: Proposed Working Group<br>Last updated: 2012-04-24<br><br>Chairs:<br> Olaf Kolkman <<a href="mailto:olaf@nlnetlabs.nl">olaf@nlnetlabs.nl</a>><br> Murray Kucherawy <<a href="mailto:msk@cloudmark.com">msk@cloudmark.com</a>><br><br>Applications Area Directors:<br> Barry Leiba<<a href="mailto:barryleiba@computer.org">barryleiba@computer.org</a>><br> Pete Resnick<<a href="mailto:presnick@qualcomm.com">presnick@qualcomm.com</a>><br><br>Applications Area Advisor:<br> Pete Resnick<<a href="mailto:presnick@qualcomm.com">presnick@qualcomm.com</a>><br><br>Mailing List: <br> Address:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <a href="mailto:weirds@ietf.org">weirds@ietf.org</a><br> To Subscribe: <a href="https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/weirds">https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/weirds</a><br> Archive:<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span> <a href="http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/weirds/">http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/weirds/</a><br><br>Description of Working Group:<br><br>Internet registries for both number resources and names have<br>historically maintained a lookup service to permit public access<br>to some portion of the registry database. Most registries offer<br>the service via WHOIS (RFC 3912), with additional services being<br>offered via world wide web pages, bulk downloads, and other<br>services, such as RPSL (RFC 2622).<br><br>WHOIS has never been internationalized. In the absence of formal<br>specification, ad hoc solutions to signal internationalized<br>registration data have been adopted and deployed. Providing a<br>standards-based solution that scales well could minimize further<br>proliferation of ad hoc solutions.<br><br>WHOIS also has no data model: replies are basically just free-form<br>text. This means that processing of WHOIS output amounts to<br>"screen scraping", with specialized handlers for every service.<br>While many of the domain name registries share a basic common output<br>format, the addition of data elements changes the output<br>and causes problems for parsers of the data.<br><br>The WHOIS protocol does not offer any differential service; it<br>cannot differentiate among clients to offer different subsets of<br>information or to allow different access rates to it.<br><br>Various attempts to solve the limitations of WHOIS have met with<br>mixed success. The most recent of these was IRIS (RFC 3891).<br>IRIS has not been a successful replacement for WHOIS. The primary<br>technical reason for this appears to be the complexity of IRIS, the fact<br>that it builds upon many available technologies that in the aggregate<br>form a complex system. There may also exist non-technical reasons,<br>but they lie in areas upon which the IETF does not pass judgement.<br><br>In recent years, ARIN and RIPE NCC have fielded production RESTful<br>web services to serve WHOIS data, and each has met with success.<br>It is widely believed that this simpler re-use of Web technologies<br>familiar to modern web developers has enabled this success. The<br>purpose of this working group is to broaden the use of RESTful web<br>services by achieving simple and common URI patterns and responses<br>amenable to all number resource and domain name registries.<br><br>This Working Group shall determine the general needs of such a<br>service, and standardize a single data framework. That framework<br>shall be used to encapsulate objects that could form part of an<br>answer. The framework shall be for data to be delivered via a<br>RESTful data service using HTTP (optionally using TLS), and may use<br>standard features of HTTP to support differential service levels<br>to different classes of user. The data shall have one mandatory<br>format, though the working group may consider other optional formats.<br>The overall effort will be broadly aligned with<br>a subset of the Cross Registry Internet Service Protocol (CRISP)<br>Requirements (RFC 3707), but with the explicit additional goals of<br>producing a simple, easy-to-implement protocol, supporting<br>internationalized registration data and, specifically for<br>name registries, capturing the needs of internationalized<br>domain names in the data model.<br><br>As the number registries have more experience with these services<br>and have found common ground, with their dissimilarities resulting in<br>more complete working group input documents, the goals of the working<br>group are to produce standards-track specifications for both number<br>and name registries using the fashion and pattern of the number registry<br>input documents, draft-newton-et-al-weirds-rir-query and<br>draft-newton-et-al-weirds-rir-json-response, as an initial basis.<br><br>Work to specify the query for domain name registration data will be <br>based on draft-sheng-weirds-icann-rws-dnrd.<br><br>The Working Group shall determine the general requirements of such a<br>service, using draft-kucherawy-weirds-requirements as an input document,<br>and standardize a single data framework. The working group will likely<br>not seek publication of this draft.<br><br>Should the Working Group reach a point where it determines that the <br>problem of producing a grand unified specification for both numbers and <br>names appears to be intractable, it will be permitted to divide the <br>problem into separate tasks and amend its milestones accordingly.<br><br>Milestones:<br><br>Nov 2012 Draft specifying the common infrastructure document to the<br> IESG for approval as a Proposed Standard.<br><br>Feb 2013 Draft specifying the RESTful URL query format for RIRs to the<br> IESG for approval as a Proposed Standard.<br><br>Mar 2013 Draft specifying the format for responses to RIR queries<br> to the IESG for approval as a Proposed Standard.<br><br>Jul 2013 Draft specifying the RESTful URL query format for domain name<br> registration data to the IESG for approval as a Proposed<br> Standard.<br><br>Aug 2013 Draft(s) specifying the format(s) for responses to domain name<br> registration data queries to the IESG for approval as a<br> Proposed Standard.<br>_______________________________________________<br>weirds mailing list<br><a href="mailto:weirds@ietf.org">weirds@ietf.org</a><br>https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/weirds<br></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>