Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: Advancing the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) to Internet Standard

["Hollenbeck, Scott" <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: last-call <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of John C Klensin
> Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 4:18 PM
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: Advancing the Registration Data
> Access Protocol (RDAP) to Internet Standard
> 
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> Hi.
> 
> Questions about this that may bear some discussion (I'm not necessarily
> opposed, just think we should be clear)...
> 
> The description in the supporting document indicates, as required,
> "widespread deployment and successful operational
> experience".   While I understand that this has been implemented
> for many TLD and address registries and is in use by at least some of those
> registries and their customers, RFC 7480, which appears to be the core
> document of the collection, says:
> 
> "RDAP is a successor protocol to the very old WHOIS protocol."
> in the abstract and proceeds to justify the specification of RDAP in the
> Introduction and elsewhere in the document.  It is now nearly seven years
> since RFC 7480 was published; WHOIS is almost certainly more in use than
> ever (just because the Internet and number of TLDs has grown); and there
> are continuing efforts outside the IETF (e.g., in a seemingly-never-ending
> sequence of ICANN committees and working groups) to define a
> replacement for WHOIS and requirements for its use (at least for DNS
> purposes).
> 
> So, three questions and a comment, with the understanding that they may
> partially apply to 7482bis and 7483bis as well:
> 
> (1) While the requirements for Internet Standard do not require acceptance
> in the marketplace, I believe the IETF has sometimes interpreted evidence of
> the lack of such acceptance --which, at least in terms of replacing WHOIS for
> DMS use, appears clear
> here-- as an indication that we should not proceed with advancing the
> document.  There may be reasons for advancing these specifications anyway,
> but would it then be useful to modify at least 7480 to make the relationships
> more clear?

WHOIS and RDAP are completely independent, but Section 1 of 7480 already describes some of the issues with WHOIS that prompted the development of RDAP. What else is needed?

> (2) More basically, is there consensus in the IETF community (not just in the
> regional and TLD registry communities) that this is the way to go, doing so
> without any supporting or explanatory documentation in the RFC Series,
> noting in particular that RFC 3912 (the current Whois spec) is already at Draft
> Standard and evidently much more widely deployed and used and that these
> documents do nothing to deprecate it (the comments in assorted SSAC
> reports referenced from RFC 7480 and many subsequent ICANN reports
> about its deficiencies notwithstanding).
> 
> (3) If there is actually IETF consensus to advance these two documents
> without either updates or supplemental explanations, could the supporting
> document in the datatracker, be updated to reflect discussion and decisions
> related to the above issues rather than simply asserting that "the RFC 6410
> requirements...
> have been met" which, given at least the Whois question, may be a bit
> misleading even if that was not intended?
> 
> (4) Finally, if the intention of moving these documents to Internet Standard
> at this time is, even partially, to act as a forcing function for getting rid of
> WHOIS, can that please be explicit rather than having people asking "why
> now" questions.
> >From my perspective, if it is just a matter of an outgoing AD
> trying to clean up as many loose end as possible, I have no problem with that,
> but it would be good to be clear.

I'll leave the consensus questions for the IESG, but the intention of the request to advance the RDAP RFCs to Standard status is NOT to force deprecation of WHOIS. It's about recognizing the implementation and deployment success of RDAP. I imagine that there will need to be a "move WHOIS to Historic status" request at some point in the future if it ever falls into disuse.

Scott