Dear Colleagues, [apologies for duplicate messages, and for having misspelled ncc-services-wg@ripe.net in the previous posting] I'd like to summarise the discussions took place in the last two weeks in the working group mailing lists after the publication of the organisation object proposal ( http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail-archives/db-wg/2003/msg00159.html ) and after the presentation in the DB-WG session last week in RIPE 46 Meeting ( http://www.ripe.net/ripe/meetings/ripe-46/presentations/ripe46-db-organisati... ). 1. "org:" attribute mandatory or optional in aut-num objects? The proposal mentioned above specified "org:" attribute in aut-num objects to be mandatory. However, often LIRs request an ASN for their customers and the RIPE NCC does not have enough information for them to fill in an organisation object completely. Rather than putting invalid information on the whois database, the RIPE NCC thinks it is better to make "org:" attribute optional in aut-nums. 2. "org:" attribute multi- or single-valued? The proposal specified "org:" attribute single-valued in all objects. During the discussions in the DB WG, commentors from the audience stated that in some cases a person object works for more than one companies, thus one might want to put multiple "org:" attributes in his/her person object. Similar reasoning could apply to other object types as well. However, the "org:" object specifies the holder of an Internet resource in inetnum, inet6num and aut-num objects, thus it must be single-valued in these objects. For the rest of the objects, we propose to modify the rule so it can be multi-valued. 3. addition of "mnt-ref:" attribute. The proposal suggested the use of "mnt-by:" attribute for both authorisation of modification of the organisation object and the authorisation of adding a reference to the organisation object from other objects. This has a shortcoming when the organisation object is protected by an entity other than the organisation itself (for example, an LIR, whose organisation object is protected by the RIPE NCC). We would propose to introduce mandatory "mnt-ref:" attribute to control the references to the organisation object, while "mnt-by:" protects the organisation object itself, as usual. 4. "org:" attribute in the organisation object itself. The proposal suggested the use of "org:" attribute in non-organisation objects. I think it could be used in organisation objects as well, to indicate business relations like being a dependent company to another one. 5. "business-id:" attribute. It was suggested to add an attribute to specify the national organisation number or VAT number or a similar ID of the organisation. While we see the point in this, we feel it needs some more discussion. It can be added to the organisation object after its introduction. 6. changing the meaning of '-r' flag. The proposal suggested that, when a query returns an object with an "org:" attribute, the organisation objects mentioned in this attribute be appended to the query results. This behaviour can be changed by using '-r' flag in the query. This idea was based on the fact that the "org:" attribute is at least as relevant to the resource as the "admin-c:", "tech-c:" and "zone-c:" attributes as contact information. Thus, if we return person/role objects mentioned in the query results, we should also return the organisation objects. Basically, the proposed behaviour maintains the consistency. During the discussions it was proposed to change the default behaviour of whois server, and change the meaning of '-r' flag, so that - the server does not 'expand' "admin-c:", "tech-c:" and "zone-c:" attributes, nor "org:" attribute by default, - and it expands them only when '-r' flag is used. This can separately be discussed, however, I think this is out of the scope of organisation object. I hope I did not miss any other issues. If these points are OK, we will prepare another proposal for organisation object and publish it. Best regards, -- Engin Gunduz RIPE NCC Database Group