[ARIN-consult] Consultation on the Future of ARIN???s Directory Services (Updated)

[Adam Thompson]

Somehow I missed the start of this thread, until I saw this today!
Shutting down WHOIS service will break (almost?) every topology macro-analysis tool I have ever written, many of which are busy churning away on some ancient server putting out new graphs every day for companies I haven't worked for in decades.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of textbooks and how-tos and guides and tutorials showing how to use WHOIS.
Is WHOIS the future? No.  Is the query syntax baroque? Absolutely.  I can understand ARIN wanting to stop maintaining an old service with an old codebase, but I think the fallout damage here is being VASTLY underestimated.
I strongly oppose shutting down WHOIS completely, at any point.  Replacing it with a compatibility layer sounds reasonable, except the code is complex enough I think that's a "jump from frying pan into fire" move. 
I suspect, but do not know, that many/most of WHOIS's options are not being used in the wild today, and a simplified version might be an acceptable replacement.
It'll take time to read the entire thread from the archive, so I'm possibly redundant in asking: are there any stats of what direct tcp/43 WHOIS is being used for today?
-Adam (from my personal account)

-----Original Message-----
From: ARIN-consult <arin-consult-bounces at arin.net> On Behalf Of Gert Doering
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2026 3:07 PM
To: Roman Tatarnikov <roman at intlos.org>
Cc: arin-consult at arin.net
Subject: Re: [ARIN-consult] Consultation on the Future of ARIN???s Directory Services (Updated)

Hi,

On Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 12:58:26PM -0700, Roman Tatarnikov wrote:
>  - RDAP is here to be, whether someone likes it or not.

Why?

>    Whether like it or not, we're going to move to RDAP at one point or
>    another.

Why?

> Once again, I want to emphasize that this is less of a conversation of whether
> to keep WHOIS, but more of when to turn it off.

Why?

I totally fail to see a compelling argument here that "we must move to
RDAP" if whois (as in "the most simple protocol reached via tcp/43")
serves the purpose people want to have served.

Gert Doering
        -- NetMaster
-- 
have you enabled IPv6 on something today...?

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