BIND 9.3 Released With Commercial Support

darthcamaro writes "Time for net admins to update BIND: version 9.3 has been released. internetnews.com has a story on it where they talk with Paul Vixie, the founder of BIND's keeper ISC. In it he details why after so many years BIND has finally decided to offer commercial support. 'Many of the companies who use our software free of charge have told us that their corporate risk management strategy requires them to have a bona fide support channel for all of their critical operations,' Vixie said. 'In other words we were told that having the best software wasn't good enough, and giving it away for free wasn't good enough, we also had to ensure that commercial support was available or they could be forced to switch to software they didn't like as well just to get support.' The full press release on the BIND 9.3 release is also available."

Comments

This is a simple reality in corporate use

[Martin Blank]

No support, no sale.

I can understand it to a degree; there's no guarantee that the version installed today will not be completely dropped next month. It gets a little aggravating when it holds up an entire project, though, because of one small piece.

The upside, of course, is more funding for critical projects.

Re:This is a simple reality in corporate use

[NineNine]

It's not about whether it works or not. It's about being able to call somebody at 2:00AM when a critical machine goes down, as opposed to waiting for your Usenet post to get propogated, then hoping that l334G33k425 responds to your message in a timely manner and gives you the correct answer. Case in point... my retail businesses have a POS system that I paid for. Granted, there aren't any truly viable OSS ones out there yet, but assume there are. It's worth the money for me to be able to get someone on the phone 30 seconds after it crashes to get my business running again. Or if an employee fucks something up, I know that I can absolutely get someone on the phone who will eventually fix my problem. I don't care how good a competing OSS project is supposed to be: no software is perfect, and there absolutely, positively MUST be someone to fix it when the shit hits the fan (as it always does, eventually). When your rent & power bill & paycheck is on the line every day (as mine are), you don't fuck around. Period.

Todo

[T-Ranger]

1. Do a business name search on "BIND Support International".
2. Register it
3. Ditto for good domain name
4. Get letterhead printed
5. Randomly invoice big companies
6. ??
7. Profit!

Re:Wait till the next exploit,,,

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I'm sorry, but who even uses BIND anymore? an article like that on 66.35.250.150 is truly News for Nerds...

NOT "Time for net admins to update"

[strabo]

I really hope that most net admins know better than to update until after the beta is over, and the release version comes out.

BIND 9.3.0 is not released yet. It is at beta 2, which was released two days ago.

Re:Wait till the next exploit,,,

[John Starks]

Exploits are not uncommon in BIND, even today. Take a look at their security alert page, especially the matrix at the bottom. Security problems abound!

It's not clear why people continue to use BIND. It's probably because it's just assumed that it's the only thing out there. But everything from security to configuration is poorly done in BIND. I use tinydns (part of djbdns) instead on all my servers. It's written by Daniel Bernstein, the same guy that wrote qmail. He's got a great track record -- no security holes in any of his software, AND he backs up that assertion with a $1000 prize to anyone that finds such a hole. He makes a better case than I do for tinydns/qmail vs. BIND/sendmail than I ever could.

How the BIND company makes money

[amacleod98]

D. J. Bernstein has a few things to say about this Also see here And here