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We recommend that End Users maintain their PI inetnum themselves if they want to do so. However, they are free to have their provider maintain it for them if they want that, instead.

Yes, I understand, the problem is if the LIR decides not to inform the customer of this option,

This sounds like a business relation (ethics?) issue, rather than a registry or database issue.

but if it was not an option for the LIR to be maintainer of the customers PI assignment (end user mandatory maintainer) it would solve the problem.

2 problems here: - the LIR has to "donate" its resources to apply for the PI block with the NCC. So there may be a reason (in some cases) for protecting the object with the LIR's maintainer; - in our case (for customers with legacy addresses) we have an agreement in place to jointly manage and protect the inetnum objects. Some may even choose to have us do that as a service. For that reason, blocking this would be undesirable from my point of view. Wilfried. _________________________________:_____________________________________ Wilfried Woeber : e-mail: Woeber@CC.UniVie.ac.at UniVie Computer Center - ACOnet : Tel: +43 1 4277 - 140 33 Universitaetsstrasse 7 : Fax: +43 1 4277 - 9 140 A-1010 Vienna, Austria, Europe : RIPE-DB: WW144, PGP keyID 0xF0ACB369 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~