MultiBind Testers Wanted

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1

for the record...

American Webmasters is completing modifications to Bind 9.1.1 in a new =
version called MultiBind. MultiBind solves the problem of multiple root =
networks on the internet by allowing the specification of more than one =
root.cache file.

Cache files are processed in order of sysadmin-specified preference. =
When looking for a TLD, MultiBind searches each of the RSNs until a =
match is found.

MultiBind will also allow the sysadmin to specify RSN-TLD preferences so =
that control is not just at the root server level.

We are looking for testers - anyone who would like the code, please =
respond here. The beta release will be ready on May 1, 2001

http://www.nic.lion

The source code for BIND is available under a BSD-style license, which means
the owner and copyright holder (ISC - Internet Software Consortium, Inc.)
permits full redistribution, in source or binary, modified or not.

However, the product name is protected. "MultiBind" may be an infringement
of ISC's rights to the BIND product name. In any case, this derivative of
ISC's work is not sanctioned or approved by ISC in any way, and in fact
ISC's long-held position is that any proposal involving "multiple root
networks" is nothing short of domain piracy and also violates the DNS
protocol.

In addition, the possibly infringing product "MultiBind" from American
Webmasters directly contravenes the IETF IAB's position as laid out in RFC
2826(*1). ISC *strongly* recommends that the comments in RFC 2826 be
heeded by the Internet community, and that the extensions described above
for the infringing product "MultiBind" *not* be used by anyone connected to
the Internet(*2).

(*1) See ftp://ftp.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2826.txt.

(*2) Q: But what IS the Internet?
  symmetric, closure of the relationship 'can be reached by an IP packet
  from'". Seth Breidbart

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[ On Tuesday, April 10, 2001 at 14:33:35 (-0700), Paul A Vixie wrote: ]

Subject: Re: MultiBind Testers Wanted

However, the product name is protected. "MultiBind" may be an infringement
of ISC's rights to the BIND product name. In any case, this derivative of
ISC's work is not sanctioned or approved by ISC in any way, and in fact
ISC's long-held position is that any proposal involving "multiple root
networks" is nothing short of domain piracy and also violates the DNS
protocol.

Now I know you (ISC) guys are nuts. "BIND" is, literally, the "Berkeley
Internet Name Domain" server. If ISC's claiming rights to that basic
acronym that was invented and existed long before ISC or even Paul
Vixie's involvement with BIND then I'm going to have to go somewhere and
get violently sick now.... If anyone other than UCB owns the name it's
either Kevin Dunlap or Mike Karels. Certainly one of the latter is
likely to be able to claim to be its creator.

(note that of course "ISC BIND" is an entirely different critter)

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> American Webmasters is completing modifications to Bind 9.1.1 in a new =
> version called MultiBind. MultiBind solves the problem of multiple root =
> networks on the internet by allowing the specification of more than one =
> root.cache file.

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I'm failing to see the need for this for a DNS
administrator with 0.5 clues (hint: host your own root zone, and delegate
wherever you please).

I wasn't even going to respond to his original post until you said:

However, the product name is protected. "MultiBind" may be an infringement
of ISC's rights to the BIND product name.

*sigh* Shall we draw the comparisons to Tatu Ylonen now, or after you've
officially drawn the legal line in the sand with "American Webmasters"?
(Assuming, of course, that you haven't already.)

This being an operational list, wouldn't it have been possible to avoid
the veiled legal threats and stuck to an *operational* reason why we should
avoid their patches? After all, their choice of name doesn't affect our
ability to use the patches, only your company's ability to market the name
"BIND". "Not our problem."

(The easy operation reason for not using the patches being, of course, that
they're completely unnecessary, and will likely introduce lookup delays
that the administrator probably isn't expecting from that press-release-ish
announcement they originally sent out.)

ISC's long-held position is that any proposal involving "multiple root
networks" is nothing short of domain piracy and also violates the DNS
protocol.

[...]

In addition, the possibly infringing product "MultiBind" from American
Webmasters directly contravenes the IETF IAB's position as laid out in RFC
2826(*1).

*sigh^2* I can't wait for this argument to start up again.

4

Once upon a time, Paul A Vixie <vixie@mfnx.net> said:

However, the product name is protected. "MultiBind" may be an infringement
of ISC's rights to the BIND product name. In any case, this derivative of
ISC's work is not sanctioned or approved by ISC in any way, and in fact
ISC's long-held position is that any proposal involving "multiple root
networks" is nothing short of domain piracy and also violates the DNS
protocol.

Would you care to elaborate on the "protection" the ISC has on the
"product name" (I assume you mean "BIND")?

I just looked at my 8.2.2 and 8.2.3 sources and I don't see anything
beyond the license. I also don't see any mention of such protection on
the ISC web site (without digging into it anyway). I can't even find
the license on the web site.

5

Since Bindview and PC/BIND are both registered trademarks, and not
registered to the ISC, they're doubly nuts.

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[ On Wednesday, April 11, 2001 at 08:05:14 (-0700), kevind@sea.checkpoint.com wrote: ]

Subject: Re: MultiBind Testers Wanted

The term BIND, as DNS software, was never owned by Mike Karels or I.
Neather of us were the creators of BIND. At the time we work on BIND,
our work was owned by UCB. The original creators of BIND were Douglas
Terry, Mark Painter, David Riggle and Songnian Zhou. They were
working on their graduate degrees in Computer Science at UCB. The
first published paper about BIND is in the Proceeding of Summer USENIX
Conference 1984, Salt Lake City.

Oh my! I missed that reference! Thank you very much for correcting me!

I am not a lawyer but I could see that at some point the UCB Copyright
would expire and that the ISC copyright would then pick up the term.

I think Vixie was alluding more to the trademark than the copyright.

I expect that in terms of copyright he, and/or ISC, own large chunks of
the BIND-8 code, and most of the BIND-9 code and documentation; though
unless they've received waivers from all contributors the whole thing
could get rather messy if anyone ever contested it. Certainly I never
signed any waivers for my contributions to BIND-4 (though they were
implicitly freely redistributable, of course).

7

I need a QIP platform for Service Providers to allocate addresses
dynamically to their subscriber base. Any one know of a solution to do
this. It needs to have an automatic provisioning interface that has hooks
to the provisioning platform. Information I have is limited so apologies if
this makes no sense.

8

Robbie,

Have you looked at the Network Allocator add-on for QIP? Alternatively there is an API Toolkit available should you have wish to customize QIP beyond what Lucent offers. The direct URL to each of these products is ridiculously long so instead visit http://qip.lucent.com/ and look under "Ent/SP Add On's".

jas