[enum-wg] ENUM contact info should show up in LDAP

On 18 Mar 2013, at 18:39, "Rick van Rein (OpenFortress)" <rick at openfortress.nl> wrote:

>> t's not clear to me why someone would choose to use a heavyweight LDAP transaction instead of a lightweight DNS lookup or dynamic update.
> 
> Technically, you are probably right.  Except that LDAP is not heavy at all.

We can agree to differ about whether LDAP or DNS is the more lightweight.

>> User ENUM-based applications and services using DNS have pretty much flopped. How would new stuff based on LDAP change that?
> 
> Getting users to easily fetch the contact data…  and for the publisher, it has the advantage of updating the primal data and all users would automatically update.  A great saving on updating contact lists.

Sorry, I just don't get it. Two of the many problems for User ENUM are getting the tree populated and then keeping published contact data accurate and up to date. I fail to see how LDAP would make these easier. If anything, it will make the content problems worse because it raises more barriers, adds more moving parts and makes it even harder for end users to export their contact data into e164.arpa. I'll be delighted and amazed if you can prove me wrong. If users didn't do this before, why would they do it because of some LDAP back-end thing that they weren't even aware existed?

An LDAP approach to contact data could work in some corporate environments. However they've not been the settings that have so far been at the front of the queue to adopt ENUM.

I wonder how many address book or contact applications found on the current generation of smartphones and desktops use LDAP for real today. Please note I said "use", not "support". Perhaps this will change once everyone is assimilated into whatever cloud computing monster prevails in the Amazon/Apple/Google/Microsoft slug-fest that's just starting.

I used to be a great advocate of ENUM and publishing real-time contact data in the public DNS. Nowadays I see no advantages or incentives to do that, only arguments against it. Most folks' contact data doesn't change *that* often. And when they're not reachable there's no real benefit from publishing that fact. For instance, anyone who needs to contact me will do that regardless of whether I'm asleep or on a plane. So diverting to voicemail or whatever will usually be good enough most of the time. [BTW good luck getting my mother to use an ENUM app -- with or without LDAP. She doesn't even have a mobile phone and rarely surfs the net.] This probably holds true for most of the population most of the time. If you can overcome that inertia, there's a teeny chance User ENUM could have a future.