Re: Public domain software (Re: comments on Jim's and Jeff's addenda to the gTLD MOU)

[Jim Dixon <jdd@matthew.uk1.vbc.net>]

On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Jeff Williams wrote:

> > >> All over the world there are usenet news machines taking hundreds of
> > >> thousands of hits a day.  These are large, powerful, reliable machines
> > >> using public domain software.  I don't know any news machine using
> > >> commercial software that can outperform machines using public domain
> > >> software.
> > 
> > Jeff Williams:
> > >  Welll....  I don't know about that, Jim.
> > 
> > >  I must agree that much of the third generation public domain
> > >software is nearly as good as Commercial software.  Reliability is
> > >the only area that I might differ.

I am not sure what "third generation" refers to in this context, but
Andi is spot on:

> > Well, of all of the OSs that I commonly use--MacOS 7.5.5 and 8.0, WinNT 4.0,
> > Win95, BeOS PR, OS/2 Warp 4, Solaris 2.x, and Linux-pmac 2.24, it's the
> > Linux-pmac that's most stable and reliable. Not only is it free, public
> > domain software, but the PowerMac port is currently in alpha release, and
> > it's still more stable than the other OSs that I use. Similarly, apache (the
> > ...
 
>   Well I believe that Jim was refering to Doamin managment related
> software.

My point was that the assumption that free=inferior is not necessarily
correct.  Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.  Much of the software 
that we use in our network is free and superior to commercial equivalents
except documentation.  In our experience INND outperforms and is more
reliable than any commercial product in this category.


>   Exactly.  I don't know of any shared registry software for DNS that
> is highly reliable.  Maybe jim Dixon can help here?  JIm, Any
> suggestions?

The only shared registry software for DNS that I am aware of is (a) the
Nominet software and (b) the software used by DENIC, the German 
national registry (responsible for .DE).  We have been using the Nominet
software in various versions as a customer for several years.  It has 
gotten steadily better.  I have no firsthand knowledge of the DENIC 
software. 

I cannot of course speak authoritatively for Nominet but it is my
understanding that they would be pleased to see their software form
the basis of a public domain registry software suite.

--
Jim Dixon                                                 Managing Director
VBCnet GB Ltd                http://www.vbc.net        tel +44 117 929 1316
-----------------------------------hobbies---------------------------------
Member of Council                                                 President
Internet Services Providers Association                       EuroISPA EEIG
http://www.ispa.org.uk                              http://www.euroispa.org
tel +44 171 976 0679                                     tel +32 2 503 2265