Re: lastVerified: optional vs. extension

[Klaus Malorny <Klaus.Malorny@knipp.de>]

Hollenbeck, Scott wrote:
>>We already have a lot of registry-specific and inflexible 
>>stuff in EPP, mostly, 
>>but not limited to, the handling of name servers. EPP is 
>>clearly designed after 
>>Network Solution's registry model (before they were forced to 
>>open the registry 
>>to others), which is far from being generic or prototypical 
>>for the existing 
>>ccTLDs around the world.
> 
> 
> If this were true and the model were not of more general interest other
> members of the WG would have shot it down long ago.  As I remember the
> discussion the WG felt that the model was the most reasonable compromise
> when all the alternatives (including the one you proposed) were considered.
> 
> -Scott-

Hi Scott,

you do know that the world's largest ccTLD (.de) has a different model currently 
and that it works fine. But you chose to ignore it. We had long discussions 
about the sense and nonsense of the association between name servers and the 
domains they belong to. But finally you chose to ignore my points completely. 
You designed it your way, with the result that it is still being discussed heavily.

Regarding ccTLDs like .de, one could of course use EPP as a protocol on their 
model, but effectively you would have to throw away half of it and reimplement 
it: The objects themselves are not extensible, you either have to live with them 
or you have to replace them. Error codes are not extensible, with the 
consequence that some existing registries put additional error codes in the free 
text elements (which are not thought to be parsed).
Well, the registry could transform itself to be EPP compliant (maybe with the 
need to change their whole business process). But this reminds me to a proverb: 
"If the prophet does not come to the mountain, the mountain has to come to the 
prophet").

On behalf of CORE, our company has implemented the client side for the Afilias, 
Neulevel, Neustar, GNR registries and is currently preparing the implementation 
for DotCoop, .CN via Neustar. We are thinking of whether and how to use EPP as 
an additional protocol for the two sponsored gTLDs CORE operates.

Having this as a background, my personal impression I got in the meantime is 
that EPP provides less benefits as one might expect. Each of the unsponsored 
registries has some specialities (despite the fact that they all use different 
versions of EPP drafts) that need special handling far, far away from the 
protocol level. Sponsored registries are even worse, as they need new requests 
in EPP and as they might introduce side effects not covered by the protocol.

As long as one has a library for the programming language one works with (which 
are supplied by most of the registries), the benefits EPP might have compared to 
other similar protocols vanish, esp. as EPP does not provide/support any new 
features like transaction management (similar to databases) or a more complex 
model of sponsorship (beyond the registry-registrar model).

Finally, I wouldn't interpret the silence of many list members as consent. 
People have different reasons to subscribe to this list and different reasons to 
participate actively or not.

regards,

Klaus



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