Dear colleagues, we have prepared three draft documents describing how support for classless addresses can be added to the RIPE database. At the same time we propose a clear split between the allocation registry and the routing registry functions of the database. The allocation registry holds information about address space assignments done by Internet registries, while the routing registry holds information about routing policies and is largely maintained by the service providers. The three documents each describe one part of this new database. ripe-81++ - routing registry ripe-inetnum - allocation registry ripe-clarep - representation of classless addresses ripe-81++ is the longest document of the three. It describes the routing registry part of the database. It is a direct descendant of ripe-81. There are major changes as required by the separation of allocation and routing information. Also there is now support for classless routes and hence CIDR aggregation. It is also now possible to describe multiple ASes originating the same route. ripe-inetnum describes the changed inetnum object which is basically stripped of all routing and obsoleted attributes. ripe-inetnum also describes the person object and thus constitutes a complete reference for the allocation registry. ripe-clarep describes the representation of classless addresses in the RIPE database and thus in both the routing and the allocation registry. As these proposals are relevant to all three working groups addressed, we would appreciate if they could be discussed at the upcoming meeting and if at all possible consensus reached at least about the general design behind them. We need to make the registries classless as soon as possible and it will take some time to do the implementation. The documents can be found in ftp.ripe.net:ripe/drafts/<name>.{ps,txt}. We will be sending MIMEd announcements for all three shortly. Comments are very welcome indeed. Daniel Marten Tony