ISC and the Open Source Community
As an Internet user, you may not have heard of ISC, but you’re almost certainly benefiting from at least one of our open source software products right now.
Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) develops and maintains the BIND 9 DNS and Kea DHCP software that many corporations, organizations, and agencies around the world use as part of the Internet infrastructure. When your cell phone connects to the wifi at a cafe, or you type google.com into your browser, chances are pretty good that our software is part of what makes that work.
But there are plenty of commercial DNS and DHCP software packages out there; why does it matter that BIND 9 and Kea are open source? We have always believed that there is value in keeping the Internet free and open to all, and not subject to the “enshittification” that we’ve all seen when for-profit companies take over. Open source in general, and ISC’s software in particular, protects the Internet from being overtaken by businesses or governments who may not have the world’s interests at heart.
Of course, we still have bills to pay. But rather than taking our users’ data and monetizing it, we sell support contracts to large companies and organizations who want our help making sure their software runs smoothly and keeps their assets safe. Our core software remains free and available to anyone – and users can trust that the software is rigorously tested and maintained, because we pay our staff engineers fairly for their work.
We believe it’s essential to engage with the larger open source community, as evidenced by our open GitLab repositories and our popular user mailing lists. ISC staff monitor and participate in discussions on the mailing lists regularly, but so do many other long-time users who have helped literally hundreds of other users with questions.
Another way we engage with the open source community? By sponsoring scholarships to attend the All Things Open conference. We are happy to have made attendance at this year’s event possible for some people who might not have been able to participate otherwise.
ISC. Open Source for an Open Internet.
The Featured Blog Posts series highlights posts from partners and members of the All Things Open community leading up to ATO 2024.