ISC Press Release - ISC BIND Forum

[Peter Losher]

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INTERNET SOFTWARE CONSORTIUM (ISC) CREATES ISC BIND FORUM TO FOCUS ON 
SECURITY PROTOCOLS AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Initial members include AFNIC, APNIC, ARIN, Compaq, Ericsson, Hewlett 
Packard, IBM, Nominum, RIPE, Sun Microsystems and VeriSign

Redwood City, Calif., November 20, 2002 -- Internet Software Consortium (ISC) 
today announced initial members of the ISC BIND (Berkeley Internet Name 
Domain) Forum, a new program for vendors and users of ISC BIND software. ISC 
BIND Forum will benefit the global Internet community by allowing both 
vendors and users of ISC's BIND software to have a closer association with 
ISC and among themselves. Initial members of the ISC BIND Forum include 
AFNIC (Association Française pour le Nommage Internet en Coopération), APNIC 
(Asian Pacific Network Information Centre), ARIN (American Registry for 
Internet Numbers), Compaq, Ericsson, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Nominum, RIPE 
(Réseaux IP Européens), Sun Microsystems and VeriSign.

The new ISC BIND Forum will benefit members by focusing on security related 
issues, including early warning on attacks, defects, and patches. ISC's 
software is Open Source, and thus any critical information regarding the 
security of the protocol or implementation will be disclosed and explained 
to the Internet community. However, ISC believes that it is essential that 
critical Internet infrastructure such as root and TLD (Top Level Domain) 
servers are upgraded in a timely manner, and that vendors who ship BIND in 
their products have an opportunity to stay ahead of potential problems by 
delivering a patch for their customers before the public disclosure occurs. 
It is expected that CERT/CC (Carnegie Mellon Emergency Response 
Team/Coordination Center) and ISC will continue to coordinate the release of 
security-critical information.

By creating a means for ongoing support of ISC's efforts through this new 
forum, vendors and BIND users will guarantee the continued development of a 
high quality core Internet DNS (Domain Name Service) implementation. The ISC 
BIND Forum aims to secure 20 large corporate members, at which time it will 
be able to move forward with development of enhancements as dictated by the 
ISC's project calendar. This ongoing development and publishing of a robust 
code base - available free of charge and without encumbrance - will foster 
healthy competition and growth of the Internet.

ISC members help ensure that development, integration and publication of 
ISC's software continues uninterrupted and at the pace the International 
Internet community requires. The ISC BIND Forum offers several levels of 
membership: Corporate, Non-Profit and Universities, and Individual 
Memberships. The ISC BIND Forum will apply annual membership fees to fund an 
ongoing budget for software maintenance, enhancement and publication.

Forum members can expect to benefit from direct communication with ISC's 
developers and the ability to influence the priority of ISC's development 
projects in an annual BIND Workshop. Membership fees will be based on the 
organization's annual gross revenue for corporations. A flat fee will be 
assigned for universities and non-profit organizations allowing them an 
opportunity to influence continued BIND development on par with large 
corporations. The individual membership category was created to offer 
individuals in the Information Technology field who realize the value and 
importance of BIND a means to stay engaged and lend their support.

Staff fellow Jim Bound and Internet services manager Wilson Lim of HP-UX 
Networks Group stated: "DNS is absolutely critical and mandatory for Next 
Generation Networks supporting Wireless Computing and IPv6, the most 
pervasive industry implementation of DNS is the Internet Software Consortium 
(ISC) BIND implementation. The Forum being developed by ISC and members will 
be a pivotal point in the true move to Next Generation Networks deployment 
of DNS through the BIND implementation. It is imperative that the networking 
industry support ISC in their endeavor to provide a robust implementation of 
DNS that is available and interoperable across a broad range of hardware and 
operating systems platforms."

Prashant Ketkar, Solaris Product Manager, Sun Microsystems, added, "DNS is a 
critical component of any networking infrastructure and with the recent 
security and networking protocol enhancements to DNS, BIND continues to be 
an important component of the Solaris Operating Environment to our 
customers. The BIND implementation of DNS is cooperatively developed by ISC 
and implemented by several vendors in multiple operating systems. This new 
joint funding program offered by ISC is a step in the right direction to 
sustain the BIND cooperative development model."

Lynda McGinley, ISC's Programme Director commented, "Traditionally ISC has 
been funded by donations, grants and one-time development contracts and the 
invaluable resource of developers who volunteer their time to support this 
crucial part of the world's computing and communications infrastructure. We 
are now inviting the vendors and users who have benefited over the past 
years from ISC's work to support our ongoing efforts."

Bernard Volz, CTO of Ericsson's DNS & DHCP Development group, commented, 
"DNS, and in particular, BIND has been and will continue to be vital to the 
success of the Internet, wireless computing, and mobile connectivity. Also, 
BIND is important in facilitating the transition to IPv6. Therefore, 
community support is critical to assure BIND remains at the forefront of 
standards and continues to be widely available."

About ISC

ISC was founded in 1993 to develop and publish high quality reference 
implementations of core Internet protocols including DNS and DHCP (Dynamic 
Host Configuration Protocol). ISC's DNS implementation, called BIND, was 
originally developed at UC Berkeley as part of the BSD (Berkeley Software 
Distribution) system, and has subsequently been completely rewritten at ISC. 
Most DNS servers on the Internet run BIND or BIND-derived software. The 
ISC's reference implementation of DHCP is the de facto standard for all UNIX 
and UNIX-like systems including Linux and BSD.

For more information on the ISC BIND Forum see http://www.isc.org/BINDForum/ 
or contact Lynda McGinley, ISC's Programme Director at 
Lynda_McGinley at isc.org.

CONTACT:

ISC
Lynda McGinley
Phone: 303.492.2545
Email: Lynda_McGinley at isc.org

- -- 
Peter_Losher at isc.org - Internet Software Consortium - OpenPGP E8048D08
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