The RIPE whois server software is now available from ftp.ripe.net as file ~ftp/tools/whois-server.shar.Z. This is just the software which allows you to query a RIPE database file. The updates scripts will be released separately. If you have trouble installing the package, please let me know. If you use the package to run a full-service RIPE database server, please notify ncc@ripe.net. If apporpriate we can then arrange to automatically re-direct queries from your area to that server. We also ask every full-service RIPE database server to enable query logging and send us the results regularly because we would like to publish usage statistics of the RIPE database as such in the NCC quarterly reports. Daniel