Slashdot Mirror
Root-server switches from BIND to NSD
A Sorry End writes "It appears that one of the 13 root-servers, the core of DNS name resolution, have moved away from BIND to NSD since wednesday, Feb 19th, 2003, which is a Good Thing. Since the 26th of october 1990, all root-servers have been running BIND. According to this message, this change was designed to increase the diversity of software in the root name server system, the lack of which is widely considered to be a potential vulnerability. The nsd software has been designed from scratch specifically as an authoritative name server. It has no design commonalities with bind, the currently prevalent DNS implementation.
In addition to that nsd provides a significant increase in the performance reserve of k.root-servers.net.
NSD was developed at NLnet Labs in coorperation with RIPE."
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: BIND is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered BIND community when Slashdot confirmed that the internet rootservers are starting a small yet noticable shift away from BIND. Usage has already been dropped from one of the root servers with many more likely to follow. This news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. BIND is collapsing in complete disarray..
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict BIND's future. The hand writing is on the wall: BIND faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for BIND because BIND is dying. Things are looking very bad for BIND. As many of us are already aware, BIND continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
BIND9 is the most endangered of them all, having gained only a small user base out of previous BIND 8 and BIND9 users. There can no longer be any doubt: BIND is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
13 of 13 root servers ran BIND. Now one of them has changed, that's 7.69% of all top level name servers in one fell swoop. Netcraft has never shown such a migration between IIS and Apache . This is consistent with any troubled software losing its users.
The BIND development team is ready to disband, its corpse will be turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that BIND has steadily declined in market share. BIND is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If BIND is to survive at all it will be among NS dilettante dabblers. BIND continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, BIND is dead.
Trolling is a art,
I wonder why they didn't switch to Dan Bernstein's DNS package (djbdns). Like all his code, it's solid as a rock, speedy, and easy to understand. Maybe it's because there's such bad blood between Dan and the BIND guys.