CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Joan Gargano/University of California, Davis

Minutes of the Whois and Network Information Lookup Service Working
Group (WNILS)



Approval of the Minutes

The minutes of March 29, 1993 were unanimously approved without changes.



Status of Whois++ Architecture

Many attendees were new to the WNILS Working Group and requested an
introduction to the Whois++ architecture.  Peter Deutsch presented an
overview of the Whois++ architecture and design philosophy.  A lengthy
discussion followed and the following additions to the protocol were
requested.


   o Provide a mechanism for supporting 16-bit Unicode.
   o Specify the mechanism of handling multimedia data using the MIME
     standard.
   o Provide an option for handling compressed data.


Peter will incorporate the additional specifications and submit an
Internet-Draft by July 30, 1993.



Status of The Distributed Whois++ Model - Centroids

Chris Weider presented an overview of centroids.  Two problem areas were
identified.


  1. Centroids don't scale for databases containing large quantities of
     unique data.
  2. The potential exists for cycles or looping in queries because the
     directory is in a mesh configuration.


Chris agreed further work is needed on indexing but this first
implementation should provide a functional system for existing data sets
and a testbed for the limitations of this model.

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Status of Recommended Modifications to the Whois Protocol

The status update was given by Joan Gargano.  The recommended
modifications to Whois have been submitted as an Internet-Draft.  The
host record section will be updated with the following information and
resubmitted:


              Host records                       required
              Full domain name                   required
              IP address                         optional
              System administrator name          optional
              System administrator telephone     optional
              System administrator address       optional
              System administrator email address optional
              Type of machine                    optional
              Operating system                   optional
              Mail exchanger                     optional
              Last update                        required
              Location of additional information optional


Update of Goals and Milestones

The goals and milestones will be updated to reflect the following:


  1. All draft papers will be submitted as Internet-Drafts by the end of
     July.
  2. Two working implementations of clients, servers and centroids will
     be available by September 30, 1993.


Attendees

Paul Barker              p.barker@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Tim Berners-Lee          timbl@info.cern.ch
Kursat Cagiltay          kursat@vm.cc.metu.edu.tr
Jodi-Ann Chu             jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
James Conklin            jbc@bitnic.educom.edu
Thomas DeWitt            tdewitt@osi.ncsl.nist.gov
Jill Foster              Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk
Barbara Fraser           byf@cert.org
Kevin Gamiel             kgamiel@cnidr.org
Joan Gargano             jcgargano@ucdavis.edu
Ben Geerlings            ben.geerlings@surfnet.nl
Anders Gillner           awg@sunet.se
Judith Grass             grass@cnri.reston.va.us
Nandor Horvath           horvath@sztaki.hu

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Olle Jarnefors           ojarnef@admin.kth.se
Borka Jerman-Blazic      jerman-blazic@ijs.si
Thomas Johannsen         thomas@ebzaw1.et.tu-dresden.de
Neil Katin               katin@eng.sun.com
Sean Kennedy             liam@nic.near.net
Michael Khalandovsky     mlk@ftp.com
Peter Koch               pk@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Pekka Kytolaakso         pekka.kytolaakso@csc.fi
Eliot Lear               lear@sgi.com
Steen Linden             steen.linden@uni-c.dk
John Lindsay             lindsay@kingston.ac.uk
April Marine             april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov
John Martin              John.Martin@newcastle.ac.uk
Chip Matthes             chip@delphi.com
Brian May                Brian.May@mel.dit.csiro.au
Mitra                    mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us
Clifford Neuman          bcn@isi.edu
Lisa Nielsen             lisa@hawaii.edu
Ronny Nilsen             Ronny.Nilsen@usit.uio.no
Petri Ojala              ojala@eunet.fi
Lars-Gunnar Olsson       Lars-Gunnar.Olsson@data.slu.se
Mark Prior               mrp@itd.adelaide.edu.au
Joyce K. Reynolds        jkrey@isi.edu
Ulla Sandberg            ulla@kiera.ericsson.se
Miguel Sanz              miguel.sanz@rediris.es
Heiner Schorn            heiner.schorn@umdac.umu.se
Rickard Schoultz         schoultz@admin.kth.se
Patricia Smith           psmith@merit.edu
Suzanne Smith            smith@es.net
Milan Sova               sova@feld.cvut.cz
Erdal Taner              erdal@vm.cc.metu.edu.tr
Marc van der Noordaa     noordaa@rare.nl
Guido van Rossum         guido@cwi.nl
Ton Verschuren           Ton.Verschuren@SURFnet.nl
Lea Viljanen             Lea.Viljanen@helsinki.fi
Ruediger Volk            rv@informatik.uni-dortmund.de
Chris Weider             clw@merit.edu
Wilfried Woeber          Wilfried.Woeber@CC.UniVie.ac.at
Russ Wright              wright@lbl.gov



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