Hi Tobias,
I can see why you wouldn't want multiple references but I don't buy that a direct reference would create a mess. The concept of 'more specific' should be somewhat obvious to this community.
We would end up in some cases having 2 or more possibly different abuse-c objects for 1 resource.
Exactly as we have now: if a resource has, besides the LIR, an organisation object with abuse-c, you do have 2 covering abuse-c object (as the one for the 'customer' org is optional).
I think the main goal of the RIPE DB is to serve the data that the data provider wants to be served.
I think I have to slightly disagree here. :-) If every data provider can put whatever he wants in the DB ...
Correct... but as Gert pointed out: if you make it difficult for the data provider to be accurate (within the rules), he won't. And it's a loss to everyone. After all, providing accurate data via the RIPE DB is more a service to the community than a revenue generating action.
BUT never the less the policy as is worked for the majority of people otherwise it would not have been consensus called by Brian.
Well, the mail said 'no objections' - and that's correct. But if the absence of objections is based on a misunderstanding of the implementation (because the restrictions were not spelled out) the consensus is pretty worthless. As I can obviously only speak for myself, I'd love to hear from others if it was clear to them that an abuse-c could ONLY be linked to an organisation.
You can be as specific as you want to be. you just have to go the way over the ORG. I'm not 100% but I think the ORG might be a bit misleading here. ORG doesn't mean a company. It can be different divisions of an Organisation.
From the reference manual about organisation: "This entity may be a company, non profit group or individual.". Besides, if you would create a division as the referenced org of an inetnum, you would lose (or make it hard to find) the information 'what resources does this org have?' And I'd consider that as a loss.
So if you are talking about dynamic DSL ranges and hosting ranges, you can create an ORG for Hosting and DSL. In future, when you add new resources or change stuff in the abuse-c you will have to change it at one single point. and not in all ranges. So this leads to a much easier way of maintaining it. Yes the pain now will be bigger until everybody has build up the new structure and has it in place.
One point of the organisation construct was to lessen the pain, wasn't it? But at the end of the day all your arguments are in favor of having the organisation construct (and I agree). It certainly suits the majority. However none of them convinces me that allowing references from the resource objects is actually bad. I just don't see anyone using it unless he sees a need...and having accurate abuse-c is, after all, a goal of the AA WG and the abuse-c policy.
I will check if we can change the policy text in a few points to match the real world plan we have agreed on as a policy.
I strongly object to that conception: only the policy is policy. Even if the implementation is confirmed (or non-objected) by the WGs, it cannot modify, enhance or restrict the initial policy. Best, Gilles