[DBWG] DBWG-2: proposal to auto-generate contents of the mandatory "changed" field in db objects.

[Michel ODOU]

Hi Frank,

On 05/08/2020 13:22, Frank Habicht wrote:

> 

> my personal (non-chair) opinion is that this is dangerous.

> Can we get consensus that this should not be allowed?

> 

> I believe all creations and updates of domain objects should enforce

> that there is a mnt-by.


The mnt-by attribute is mandatory since June 2014. It is not possible to
create/update a domain object without a mnt-by attribute. However, we
still have many unprotected domain objects in the database that have not
changed since.


> 

> From below I understand that there was no enforcement that later

> creations/updates also had maintainers for these objects, correct?

> 


There is no enforcement that later *updates* have a mnt-by attribute for
person and role objects because, as explained in my previous mail, the
mnt-by attribute remains optional on these objects, for historical
reasons (you need a person or a role to create a maintainer because
admin-c is mandatory - if at the same time you need a mntner to create
the person/role object, then we have a cyclic dependency. a way to break
it is to make the mnt-by optional in the person and role objects).

However, since September 2017, when a person or role object is *created*
without a mnt-by attribute, the WHOIS will generate one for the user.
This still applies.

Regards,
Michel