Hello.
The design of this feature was specified some time ago by Carol Orange and Wilfried Woeber (please see http://www.ripe.net/meetings/ripe/ripe-27/pres/rout e/referral/) and discussed in the RIPE db-wg mailing list (please see http://www.ripe.net/mail-archives/db-wg/19970501-19970601/threads.html)
Oh. Fine. Do I get it right that this was discussed and agreed on more than a year ago? Argh. This change breaks too many things, imnsho, and it seems again that if you are not able to make it to the RIPE meetings, you have lost. A special announce would have been most helpful (an explicit one, stating this).
As a side note I would like to stress that the RIPE Database is NOT the source of authoritative data for domain objects (although we are happy to provide a repository for TLD administrators). This is UNLIKE the internic whose business is to sell names.
Oh. Fine. whois.nic.de *cough* barely ever working... Weak argument. And If I wanted to know the data about the domain one level higher, I can do so myself, I don't need to get it told to me by whois, I want to know whether crab.de (bad example, it really exists) is in the DB already or not.
The RIPE NCC is therefore acting according to users directives that were discussed and agreed on an open way.
Hitchhiker's Guide, anyone? *sigh* This was a not-so-nice change, really. Consider this a statement of disagreement with the way the change took place. Ok, one more mailling list to follow... Time to sell. Regards, Alexander Koch -- SGH Internet Division, Alexander Koch, Systems Administration Hannover, Germany, Phone +49 511 909198 0, Fax +49 511 391307