[tech-whois] A follow up session in San Francisco?

Tue Feb 22 02:42:47 UTC 2011

Hello all,

I'd like to thank Jim, Jay and Michael for their thoughtful points and respond to their concerns related to the process or next steps for this work.

This technical WHOIS work originated in part from a report prepared by staff in July 2009 at the request of the GNSO to detail the technical WHOIS service requirements that might be required to support current WHOIS requirements and proposed future WHOIS policy proposals, including the problem of internationalized domain names. (See: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois/whois-service-requirements-final-report-29jul10-en.pdf ).  In the course of preparing this report, and analyzing how the WHOIS protocol can accommodate IDNs in particular, the question arose -- is the existing protocol robust enough to continue as-is, or should the protocol be updated to address its shortcomings before introducing the complexities associated with IDNs?  IRIS is an existing protocol with extensive capabilities, but it has not been widely adopted. As new gTLDs are introduced, it will be important to better understand why this is the case.  And in the course of research, staff also learned that a web-based alternative to the current protocol was being used by some RIRs, and explored further to see whether this type of implementation might provide capabilities worth considering.

Staff kicked off this dialogue with the ICANN community to evaluate the WHOIS protocol from a purely technical perspective -- assuming the current WHOIS policies stay largely in place.  If this dialogue leads to an understanding that the technical protocol needs to be changed for all gTLDs, staff fully appreciates -- and would expect the community to follow -- the appropriate procedures for adoption of that new protocol, including the initiation of the GNSO Council's policy development processes as set forth in the ICANN bylaws.  There may also be a need to reach out to the IETF as appropriate and to conduct an evaluation of existing contracts to determine if they should be updated or amended to incorporate any new technical protocols.

However, it may be premature to raise the issue within the GNSO Council at this time without more information and data.   The session in Cartagena was an initial data gathering effort, and an event in SV would be a continuation of this effort.   Because there may be others that share your concerns regarding the policy implications, I agree that it would be important to clarify in the agenda for the SV meeting the purpose/expected next steps of this dialogue.  It may be useful to note that there is a Board mandated process underway to revise the current GNSO PDP.  One of the key elements under consideration is the importance of greater fact-finding and research, prior to launching policy development work, especially on complex matters.  In this new PDP "model", the community is encouraged to meet, collect factual data, hold workshops, and even consider hiring experts when appropriate to provide useful information about the nature of policy concerns and possible options to address them before proceeding on a formal PDP track.  Creating a technical WHOIS discussion list is in keeping with that model, and is not intended to circumvent the policy development process.

If the community prefers to continue this discussion in another forum, such as under the auspices of an SO or AC, or through a "cross" SO-AC email list, staff will be happy to accommodate and support that.

Best Regards,

Liz

From: tech-whois-bounces at icann.org [mailto:tech-whois-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Steve Sheng
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 2:49 PM
To: James M Galvin; Jay Daley
Cc: tech-whois at icann.org
Subject: Re: [tech-whois] A follow up session in San Francisco?

Thank you Jim and Jay for your suggestion.

Warm regards,
Steve

On 2/16/11 4:37 PM, "James M Galvin" <jgalvin at afilias.info> wrote:
I agree with Jay's suggestion.

Jim

-- On February 17, 2011 11:49:40 AM +1300 Jay Daley <jay at nzrs.net.nz>
wrote regarding Re: [tech-whois] A follow up session in San Francisco?
--

> Hi Steve
>
> On 2/02/2011, at 2:04 PM, Steve Sheng wrote:
>
> > What do others on the mailing list think? Since Whois is used not
> > only by GNSO constituencies, but by ccTLDs, RIRs as well. Should
> > this be a joint working group with other SOs and ACs, for example
> > with SSAC? Another question is should the discussion happen inside
> > IETF instead of ICANN?
>
> I would recommend that we have a joint WG across all constituencies
> that discusses "A new directory service" and that does what Michael
> suggested, which is consider the various requirements and get
> agreement on those.  The registrar and user communities may have just
> as much input as the registries.
>
> Once that is done then we can take two further steps:
>
> 1.  Have a joint WG on whether to scrap the current WHOIS service.
> 2.  Ask the IETF to look at the protocol needed to support this new
> service including revisiting CRISP.
>
> cheers
> Jay
>
> >
> > Warm regards,
> > Steve
> >
> >
> > On 1/31/11 10:35 AM, "Michael Young" <myoung at ca.afilias.info> wrote:
> >
> > I tend to agree with James on this one, if we are going to do
> > something meaningful here, let's put a plan together on how to do
> > so.
> >
> > I think the last meeting found that we all agree that the current
> > Whois is at least lacking a solution for IDNs (I think we all
> > agreed on other shortcomings as well, but that was the most urgent
> > one I noted).
> >
> > There are many other controversial potential Whois requirements
> > that are related to the Whois policy(and related studies) work
> > going on.  I suggest we try and focus on building a requirements
> > list of items that we believe a) don't constrain or affect current
> > or anticipated policy issues and have the GNSO/IRD review and agree
> > on that  list  b) if they do have policy implications but are
> > urgent (such as IDN enablement), let's work with the IRD and GNSO
> > to create some prioritized attention to the issues.
> >
> > Once you have an agreed upon set of requirements, with the relevant
> > stakeholders bought in, the rest becomes an examination of
> > inventory and then execution.  We can then examine the most
> > efficient proposals to solve the requirements - including looking
> > at past work to see if there's anything worth reusing.
> >
> > Michael Young
> >
> > M:+1-647-289-1220
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: James M Galvin [mailto:jgalvin at afilias.info]
> > Sent: January-31-11 1:23 PM
> > To: Steve Sheng; tech-whois at icann.org
> > Subject: Re: [tech-whois] A follow up session in San Francisco?
> >
> > I'm not opposed to a follow up session in San Francisco but I'd
> > like to have a more actionable goal for the meeting than "engage a
> > discussion on the technical evolution of WHOIS".
> >
> > One thing that was clear from our last meeting is somebody needs to
> > "own" this work.  A generic meeting with a generic agenda is not
> > making progress. If this work is going to progress then from whom
> > is there a formal mandate and what is it?
> >
> > Without an actionable goal we're just using up meeting slots.
> >
> > For one thing, let's be clear about whether we're talking about the
> > Whois protocol, the Whois data model, or the Whois data
> > representation.
> >
> > Depending on the actionable goal, if we are going to have
> > presentations by RWS and IRIS, perhaps a presentation by the IRD
> > would be helpful since it will have something to say about future
> > requirements for a replacement Whois data model.
> >
> > Jim
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -- On January 26, 2011 9:52:17 AM -0800 Steve Sheng
> > <steve.sheng at icann.org> wrote regarding [tech-whois] A follow up
> > session in San Francisco? --
> >
> > > Dear all,
> > >
> > >   We had a successful workshop in Cartagena last year. Thinking
> > >   ahead for the San Francisco meeting, we would like to ask if
> > > there would be any interest in scheduling a follow up session in
> > > San Francisco. Particularly we thought about inviting IRIS and
> > > RWS authors and implementers to come and give presentations about
> > > their experience, and then engage a discussion on the technical
> > > evolution of WHOIS.
> > >
> > >   If there is sufficient interest, we can request a slot in the
> > >   San Francisco meeting and invite speakers to come.
> > >
> > > Warm regards,
> >
> >
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> >
> >
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