On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 5:53 AM, John Curran <jcurran@arin.net> wrote:
On Sep 16, 2011, at 3:21 AM, Randy Bush wrote: Randy - Over the last decade, we've run multiple consultations with the
While I appreciate that ARIN has had community consultations... It needs to be understood that the WHOIS service is a critical service that many people rely upon, and many people/organizations have developed tools and internal processes that work with the WHOIS service and rely on it continuing to operate in the manner it has operated in the past. There may be no RFC specifying the exact contents of the WHOIS output and the query syntax, but these are de-facto standards and should not be changed without a great deal of care. Many stakeholders are unlikely to be well-represented in the consultation process. ARIN should acknowledge this fact, and therefore ensure that any changes suggested do not break or significantly alter the standard behavior and operation of WHOIS, when a WHOIS user is not issuing a query specifically asking to utilize a new feature or format. When new changes are being proposed they should be operated on a separate WHOIS system in parallel. The community consultation process should not merely be "take this list of suggestions", there should be ACCEPTANCE TESTING and approval by the community of the final result. Regards, -- -JH