[ lengthy discussion from db-wg@ripe.net on the issue of exposing contact information and descriptions deleted. ]
As an RPS WG geek I feel that the issue of how much personal contact information to expose should not be decided in the WG. (I don't expect any argument from the ripe community on that point. :) In order to facilitate local decision on how to protect the people and role objects, I'd like to make a proposal that would allow for standardization of the exchange between repositories but also make the decision as to how much data to expose an entirely local decision. The people and role objects would *NOT* be redisributed in the the distributed registry model. They are not needed to configure routers. The need to get people or role information is an exception that can be handled by contacting the authoritative registry (query instructions would be found using the repository objects in the registry itself). Each registry would be free to impose any restrictions that they felt their clients favor and change them since the restrictions would be implemented solely in the query interface. Part of the db-wg discussion suggested that the descr attribute should be restricted. This would be ineffective if the descr had to be included in the flooded information in order to keep the signature on the submission accurate. If it is desirable to have similar local control over access to the description information, then a new "identity" object should be created. The descr can still be placed inline for backward compatibility. Alternately a reference to an identity object can be placed in any object that now allows a descr. The reference can be called "detail" just to be different from descr. [Please separate arguments about the proposal from arguments about the choice of the names "identity" and "detail".] If we decide to do an identity object, the identity object should *NOT* be flooded just as the person and role objects are not flooded. Decisions on whether and how to restrict access to person, role, and identity would be registry local decisions and could be changed by any one registry as they felt it neccesary to do so. Do we have agreement on: 1. don't flood person and role objects (needs to be in rps-dist). 2. add a "identity" object and "detail" attribute (if so, should be added to rpsl-v2 before last call ends). Not flooding identity should be mentioned in rps-dist. 3. the names "identity" and "detail" are resonable choices. Please feel free to continue your argument (on db-wg not rps :) about how RIPE will protect the and person and role objects, and the descr (as an identity object if you decide to protect it). As long as we can make this a registry local decision RPS need not be involved. Thanks. Curtis