[ppml] Too many words...

[Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com]

> That would be true if there weren't a subsequent statement
> that OTHER MEDIA can be made available at ARIN's discretion.
> However, such a statement is present in the proposed policy, thus 
trumping
> any such implication.

Then why say things twice when one statement will do.

"Recordable media can be made available at ARIN's discretion".

> Right... Then, users are free to expect any random form of media they
> choose. 

Nope. Users are free to negotiate a deal with ARIN in regards
to copies of the database without any interference from overly
specific policy. ARIN staff can use their discretion, charge
a reasonable fee for the service, schedule the service to be 
done at ARIN's convenience, etc. We don't need to write any
of these words in the policy in order to make this possible.

> The policy as written makes it very clear that ARIN will publish
> the data on CDROM and MAY publish it on other media upon request if ARIN
> feels such request is not overly burdensome.

And when we discover that publishing it on CD-ROM *IS* burdensome,
then what do we do. ARIN has never published the whois directory
on CD-ROM in the past and no investigation has been done into
the feasability of ARIN supplying recordable media. Therefore
it is highly inappriate for the policy makers to choose CD-ROM
to be embedded in the policy. There is no need for this, no
demonstrated demand, and it is not in line with the purpose
and scope of the whois directory because we haven't even decided
what that is yet.

This is the danger in writing too many words, too soon. 

> The policy as written
> is better than your proposal, no matter how  many times you repeat your
> proposal.

I haven't made any proposal other than to shorten, simplify
and get rid of unneccessary details that should be decided
by ARIN staff or the BoT, not by ARIN policy.

> In my opinion, this simply isn't an accurate interpretation of the 
policy
> as worded.  The policy as worded guarantees that at a minimum, CD-ROM
> will be available.  CDROM is currently the most common form of 
mass-storage
> media.  As to the data not fitting, let's look at that realistically.

In my world, hard drives are the most common form of mass-storage
media. They are widely available with standard interfaces such as
USB 2.0 and Firewire that make them very portable. The second
most common form of mass-storage media in my world, is the DVD.
Arguably, DVDs are more portable than CD-ROM so if the policy is
going to mention a specific media, then DVD is it.

However, I would disagree with this policy in the same way and
for the same reasons if all occurrences of CD-ROM were replaced
with DVD. 

> I believe the average whois record is approximately 512 bytes, so, we
> have 875,000 records at 512 bytes is 448,000,000 bytes which is
> roughly 428 Megabytes.  A CDROM is 700 Megabytes.  You can fit almost
> two copies of the worst case database on a CDROM.

Earlier someone pointed out that the ideal way to distribute
the whois data was to provide 5 copies in various formats.
Clearly, this will not fit on a CD-ROM, therefore it is
questionable whether CD-ROM is suitable for ARIN to use
in a simple manner. 

> The argument of what happens when the database exceeds a CDROM is 
specious.

No, you have proved that the data already exceeds the capacity of a
CD-ROM unless ARIN only provides it in one raw file format that 
doesn't have a lot of overhead.

--Michael Dillon