On Thu, 18 Jul 2002, Havard Eidnes wrote in reply to Pieterjan d'Hertog:
What about RFC954 dating from 1985...
<snip> WHO SHOULD BE IN THE DATABASE
DCA requests that each individual with a directory on an ARPANET or MILNET host, who is capable of passing traffic across the DoD </snip>
Shouldn't it be made obsolete?
I'm however not aware of any attempt at re-specifying the WHOIS protocol itself, so that the above document can be moved to historic status; if you want to play along those lines, "feel free".
Actually, there is: ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-campbell-whois-00.txt I've attempted to define the WHOIS (actually 'nicname') protocol to be independent of any expectations of output formats or what is in the database, and keep it to a simple question/answer protocol with a few basic niceties (such as 'help'). Another draft was put forward on the ietf-whois list some time ago which explicitly shifted 954 to Historic, although I cannot find this as an internet draft at the present time.
However, I'm not sure a re-specification of the WHOIS protocol is going to quiet the rfc-ignorant.org folks' on this point.
On this matter, it will, however they will find other aspects to complain about.
The question appears to be: "must there be registered at least one e-mail address per assigned address block", be that in either ARIN, RIPE or APNICs whois databases.
In the original mail to lir-wg, the range in question meets this criteria (the tech-c has an email address, the adminc-c does not), hence rfci's listing is incorrect by their own cited policy ;) -- Bruce Campbell RIPE Systems/Network Engineer NCC www.ripe.net - PGP562C8B1B Operations/Security