BIND, djbdns, commercialization

Sat Feb 3 21:19:01 UTC 2001

> I fail to see the point of discussing or arguing partial commercialization
> of premium services -- I haven't seen one valid point yet.

Point is, knowing how many organizations rely on their software, and
outright saying that they will NOT let people know about bugs as soon as
they do, even if they are willing to pay for it, just doesn't seem right.
What makes Sun having this information more important than me?

I'd have no problem if Vixie went the Allman route, saying "OK, we're
going to start charging for support.  If you want to know about bugs soon

after we do, pay us $X.  If not, use at your own risk."  But, they're
saying "We're only going to let people who we want to know about the bugs
know about them.  The rest of you can hear about it on the evening
news." Even after they started sendmail.com, Allman and his crew have been
very good about releasing new sendmail patches themselves, not making you
wait for CERT Advisories, etc.

Maybe The Sendmail Consortium just realizes that if it wasn't for the
people using, breaking, and making suggestions about code updates for 10+
years, they wouldn't have the business they have now.  Maybe ISC is
forgetting that.

Jeff

--
Jeffrey Meltzer
Sr. Network Administrator
VillageWorld.com, Inc.
SolarisGuide: http://www.solarisguide.com