survey: BIND Community Edition

[Lars-Johan Liman]

vixie at isc.org:
> My survey questions are:

> 1. would you like, or not like, to see a "community edition" of BIND,
> and why (or why not)?

No, I'm not in favour of a community based edition. AFAIK everyone is
free to create additions to BIND and distribute them (e.g., as
patches). I would also caution against smudging the trademark of
BIND. If you install BIND, you want to know it's something that has gone
through QA etc, and a novice sysadmin shouldn't have to put lots of
energy into figuring out exactly "which BIND" to run.

Patches work OK, except when you bundle different patches into one blob
(like the current mix of RRL and PLZ - please stop doing that and split
the two!).

I also wonder whether "BIND itself" would survive the competition from a
community based version. Or, even worse, would ISC?

> 2. would you run or distribute such a thing in preference to "BIND
> itself", and why (or why not)?

No. (As you know ...) Our DNS server systems are absolutely vital to our
business. We need to be as sure as possible that the code we run is top
notch. We deviate from "full release code" only for time pressing and
serious security reasons.

> 3. would you join such an effort, either as a committer or as an
> organizer, and how would you contribute?

Probably not. I like the idea of community based projects, but for vital
software like this I appreciate the QA process, and preferrably what it
looks like. The mix of open source and responsible owner is a good mix
in cases like this. There needs to be vision and policy, and someone who
implements them. That is much harder in community based projects, even
if there are lots of successful examples.

I agree with Lyle in that the fact that BIND strives to be standards
based is a great benefit, and ISC's work on that front is commendable. I
would even like to suggest less implementation of experimental ideas to
support certain ... umm ...  "unorthodox" operational inclinations. I
do, however, realize that some such implemented ideas may be driven by
paying customers, and everything that fallows from that.

				Cheers,
				  /Liman
#----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Lars-Johan Liman, M.Sc.               !  E-mail: liman at netnod.se
# Senior Systems Specialist             !  Tel: +46 8 - 562 860 12
# Netnod Internet Exchange, Stockholm   !  http://www.netnod.se/
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