Nominum GNS Server and BIND

Jim Reid jim at rfc1035.com
Fri Mar 2 17:42:15 UTC 2001


>>>>> "Erik" == Erik Aronesty <erik at primedata.org> writes:

    Erik> Dear Jim, Sorry, what I meant was that the ISC board - and
    Erik> the most vocal members of the community seem to have
    Erik> positions at companies whose interests may be in conflict
    Erik> with the speed and reliability of BIND.

You're wrong about this. It may be your perception, but it doesn't
reflect what actually happens. Just compare the code quality of BIND9
with BIND8. Does that suggest there are sinister vested interests at
work? Note that January's CERT advisories about buffer overflow
attacks did not apply to BIND9. There's a reason for that. Anyone
should be able to see that the code was designed and written to be
less vulnerable to the problems that have troubled BIND[48]. Sure
there are some teething problems with BIND9 - but what new software
doesn't?

    Erik> The ISC should have had a rule that "makers of competing DNS
    Erik> software" should not be allowed to sponsor the ISC, host or
    Erik> moderate discussion groups, or hold board-member positions.
    Erik> This would help avert conflicts of interest.

    Erik> What do you think?

I think this is a matter for the ISC. If they care about it, which is
unlikely. The recently announced BIND Member's Forum is a way for
organisations using BIND or selling products based on BIND to get
involved in the future of the software. You should also remember that
ISC distributes BIND under a BSD-style licence. This means they
probably don't consider BIND as software which "competes" with other
DNS implementations. Again, ask the ISC. I don't speak for them.


More information about the bind-users mailing list