CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Joan Gargano/University of California, Davis Minutes of the WHOIS and Network Information Lookup Service Working Group (WNILS) The minutes of July 13, 1993 were unanimously approved without changes. Status of the WHOIS++ Architecture Peter Deutsch presented several additions required to the protocol: o Inclusion of MIME o Remove the counters for the number of responses in short responses o Boolean searching There was some discussion on the current use of WHOIS++ for URN to URL conversions as part of the URI Working Group activities. Peter Deutsch described the use of domain name service to find a top level WHOIS++ server for URN information. It was agreed that this work is helpful to the development of WHOIS++, but unless this work affects the WHOIS++ protocol specifications, further discussions will continue within the other working groups. Status of the Distributed WHOIS++ Model - Centroids Chris Weider described changes to the document. o An X-hierarchy field to provide metainformation for intelligent traversing of the index service has been added to provide topology, geographical and administrative values. Further extensions are needed. o A mechanism has been added for weighting information for attributes. o Identifiers at the start and end of attribute information have been added. o There is now a way to signify any field or any value in a field in a centroid change report. o A field has been added to designate case sensitivity of string values. o Simon Spero described the mechanism for searching a centroid tree from the bottom, up. o Features that are still needed include: - Need pointers that get from a top level centroid to the bottom levels, bypassing intermediate centroids. - Replication supported by the ability to pass over the entire contents of a centroid, rather than a subset. Status of WHOIS++ Clients Jim Fullton mentioned the use of WHOIS++ in support of networked information retrieval, and the type of client development that is occurring as part of other application development. He recommended that the description of clients focus on the work in these areas rather than white pages interfaces. Some discussion followed regarding the continuing need for WHOIS++ as a white pages service. Status of Recommended Modifications to the WHOIS Protocol Joan Gargano introduced that this document is available as an Internet-Draft and has not been modified for six months. Final submission as an Informational item was delayed pending stabilization of the architecture document. It does not appear it will require further modification due to protocol development. Discussion focused on the final status of this paper. Discussion of WHOIS++ Implementations The following implementations are available: o Alan Emtage's implementation Alan Emtage bajan@bunyip.com FTP: ftp.ucdavis.edu: /dist/bunyip-whois++-1.0a.tar.Z o DUA Interface using LDAP Mark Prior mrp@itd.adelaide.edu.au FTP: ftp.adelaide.edu.au: /pub/whois/whois++beta.tar.Z o PERL and dbm Rickard Schoultz schoultz@sunet.se FTP: othello.admin.kth.se: /pub/schoultz/kth-whois++-1.1a.tar.Z o PERL 4.036 on SunOS 4.1.xxx Martin Hamilton m.t.hamilton@lut.ac.uk FTP: genie.lut.ac.uk: /lut-whois++-alpha.tar.Z There are a few terminal based clients available. Chris Weider offered to compile a list of clients and servers and post them to the ietf-wnils mailing list. There is still a need for graphical user interfaces to WHOIS++ as a directory service to provide wide scale testing. Update of Goals and Milestones The following goals need revision: o 7/31/93 - Submit the WHOIS and Network Information Lookup Service Recommendations document as an Internet-Draft. o 7/31/93 - Submit the WHOIS++ protocol document as an Internet-Draft. o 7/31/93 - Submit the ``Architecture of the WHOIS++ Index Service'' document as a revised Internet-Draft. It was decided that all three of the working papers will be completed and submitted as Proposed Standards. Protocol work will be frozen for six months to allow for software development. In the meantime the working group will discuss the future direction of WNILS. Areas for discussion include: o Developing a role for WHOIS++ as a directory service, potentially including work on data elements. o Continued work on WHOIS++ as a component of other network information retrieval tools. o Closing the working group after completion of the work on the current protocols. Attendees Farhad Anklesaria fxa@boombox.micro.umn.edu Jules Aronson aronson@nlm.nih.gov Sepideh Boroumand sepi@aol.com Randy Bush randy@psg.com Brian Capouch brian@saintjoe.edu C. Allan Cargille allan.cargille@cs.wisc.edu Hallie Carlson hallie@nsipo.arc.nasa.gov Ann Cooper cooper@isi.edu Peter Deutsch peterd@bunyip.com Alan Emtage bajan@bunyip.com Qin Fang qin_fang@unc.edu Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk Jim Fullton fullton@cnidr.org Kevin Gamiel kgamiel@cnidr.org Joan Gargano jcgargano@ucdavis.edu Judith Grass grass@cnri.reston.va.us Deborah Hamilton debbieh@internic.net Roland Hedberg Roland.Hedberg@rc.tudelft.nl Russ Hobby rdhobby@ucdavis.edu Richard Huber rvh@ds.internic.net Byonghak Kim bhkim@cosmos.kaist.ac.kr Mark Kosters markk@internic.net John Kunze jak@violet.berkeley.edu Dave Livingston squirrel@vnet.net Clifford Lynch calur@uccmvsa.ucop.edu April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov Mark McCahill mpm@boombox.micro.umn.edu Michael McLay mclay@eeel.nist.gov Michael Mealling michael.mealling@oit.gatech.edu Keith Moore moore@cs.utk.edu Mark Needleman mhn@stubbs.ucop.edu Lars-Gunnar Olsson Lars-Gunnar.Olsson@data.slu.se Scott Paisley paisley@central.bldrdoc.gov Rakesh Patel rapatel@pilot.njin.net Pete Percival percival@indiana.edu Cecilia Preston cpreston@info.berkeley.edu Richard Rodgers rodgers@nlm.nih.gov Srinivas Sataluri sri@internic.net Richard Schmalgemeier rgs@merit.edu Rickard Schoultz schoultz@sunet.se Martin Schulman schulman@smtp.sprint.com Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu Simon Spero ses@unc.edu Margaret St. Pierre saint@wais.com Craig Summerhill craig@cni.org Anthony Valle valle@huntsville.sparta.com William Weems wweens@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu Chris Weider clw@bunyip.com Russ Wright wright@lbl.gov