Jeff, On Apr 19, 2011, at 10:19 AM, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
Are you saying there are people who advocate creating a new ecosystem of service providers for supplying several things that the RIRs exclusively supply today?
Yes.
Sign me up. As a vendor. I'd love to over-charge for the dead simple task of using an API to push DNS delegation updates to the IN-ADDR servers, and running a whois server.
My guess is that lacking a monopoly, if you over-charge you won't have many customers.
If you really want WHOIS output with a common, unified structure, you can do that. Bulk access to RIR data is available today.
So your solution is for everyone interested in a common database structure to download the entirety of all the RIR databases and write code to convert the various (changing) formats into a 'common, unified structure'? In any event, such a use would appear to be in violation of ARIN's Bulk Whois AUP (According to http://www.icann.org/en/correspondence/curran-to-beckstrom-02mar11-en.pdf, ARIN denied bulk whois access for the stated use of "directory mirroring").
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how a bunch of different entities providing fragmented "post-allocation services" is of any benefit.
Some folks find competition in service providers beneficial. Regards, -drc