[ire] RGP status data

[Christopher Browne <[e-mail]>]

Version 01 of the arias/noguchi draft introduced the
<rdeDomain:rgpStatus> element, which
extracts the registry grace period status values defined in RFC 3915.

Some of our folks have been questioning whether these statuses are of
much use; the initial
concerns were rather implementation-specific, but after further
reflection, I am wondering if
<rdeDomain:rgpStatus> is of any actual practical use.

For instance, consider the "addPeriod" value, which, according to
3915, indicates:

      This grace period is provided after the initial
      registration of a domain name.  If the domain name is deleted by
      the registrar during this period, the registry provides a credit
      to the registrar for the cost of the registration.

In order for addPeriod to be of any real use, there are *three* things
that need to be
known:
a) That it's present (which the IRE draft captures), but also
b) What its duration is to be, that is, when should the status expire, and
c) How much was the cost of the registration that is to be refunded.

The IRE draft captures neither the temporal information nor the cost, which
seems to seriously undermine the value of having "addPeriod" altogether.
The same issue applies in much the same way to autorenewPeriod,
renewPeriod and transferPeriod.

It's not quite the same for redemptionPeriod, pendingRestore, and
pendingDelete; for those RGP statuses, there is no amount to be refunded,
but there is still some need for a date indicating when those statuses are
intended to expire.

In view that there is nothing in the existing draft indicating any sort of
"billing transaction" stream, I would expect that it's pretty intentional not
to have costs captured in escrow.  This suggests that addPeriod,
autorenewPeriod,  renewPeriod, and transferPeriod are of limited use,
and I'd be favorably inclined to the argument that those RGP statuses
aren't worth reporting, as a result.

For the redemptionPeriod, pendingRestore, and pendignDelete RGP
statuses, I'd think that, for them to be useful, the <rdeDomain:rgpStatus>
element would need to have an attribute added indicating the expiry date
of those statuses.

Has anyone else noticed or been concerned by this issue?