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. 1 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 2 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 3